ST. LOUIS – People living from the Midwest to the Tennessee Valley are bracing for some wild weather Tuesday afternoon with millions at risk of seeing both severe weather and flash flooding.
According to the FOX Forecast Center, a stationary front over the middle Mississippi Valley will be the focus of strong to severe thunderstorms on Tuesday.
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Severe weather is possible from the Plains to the Southeast on Tuesday. However, millions of people from Missouri to Tennessee have been placed under a level 2 or 3 out of 5 on the Storm Prediction Center’s (SPC) thunderstorm risk scale.
Cities with the higher risk include Kansas City and St. Louis in Missouri, while Paducah, Kentucky, and Nashville are in the Level 3 risk zone.
Severe Thunderstorm Watches have already been issued forr more than 2 million people across parts of Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Missouri and Tennessee until 4 p.m. CDT.
This includes cities such as Paragold in Arkansas, Farmington and Poplar Bluff in Missouri, Carbondale in Illinois, Paducah and Murray in Kentucky and Dyersburg and Jackson in Tennessee.
Hail, damaging wind gusts over 60 mph and tornadoes are all possible with any of the severe thunderstorms that develop on Tuesday.
However, there is the threat of large hail (2 inches or larger) across portions of central and southeastern Missouri.
Cities in Missouri with a higher risk of seeing large hail include Columbia, Sullivan, Lebanon, Carrol, Perryville, Cape Girardeau and Poplar Bluff.
In addition to the severe weather threat, the FOX Forecast Center center says developing thunderstorms will contain copious amounts of moisture and could train over parts of the region, which could lead to a rapid accumulation of several inches of rain, and dangerous and potentially deadly flash flooding.
According to NOAA’s Weather Prediction Center (WPC), flash flooding is very likely from southeastern Missouri through southern Illinois, and western portions of Tennessee and Kentucky.
At least five people were killed in flash flooding in eastern Pennsylvania on Saturday and nearly a week after deadly flooding soaked areas from the mid-Atlantic to New England.
On Sunday, the National Weather Service issued dozens of Flash Flood Warnings and even a few Tornado Warnings as nearly 60 million residents from Virginia to Maine due to the risk of flooding rainfall and severe weather.