That Well Advertised Severe Weather Outbreak To Ramp Up Today

Tornadoes are possible in Oklahoma, Kansas
and Missouri today, but we hope no big ones
go through neighborhoods, like this one in Moore,
Oklahoma in 2013. Image fro KOCO.  

As has been advertised all week, a pretty good sized severe weather outbreak is going to get going in earnest today and continue tomorrow in the middle of the nation.

Yesterday, there were two reports of a brief tornado in Kansas.

Once again, Kentucky was nailed on Tuesday, as that state seems to be the focus of Mother Nature's wrath this year, as I've previously noted.

More flash flooding hit the state, less than a week after Kentucky flooding killed at least two people and left widespread damage to homes, businesses and roads.

A severe storm with a tornado warning just missed West Liberty, Kentucky, which was totally trashed  by a March, 2012 twister. No tornado has been reported to have touched down in Kentucky yesterday, but there were reports of wind damage and hail.

Today, the severe weather will become much more widespread than yesterday. The areas most at risk this afternoon and evening are Oklahoma, eastern Kansas, most of Missouri and western Illinois.

There's a pretty good chance some tornadoes will spin up in this region, and one or two of the tornadoes could become quite strong, says NOAA's Storm Prediction Center. 

I'm betting the inevitable storm chasers were already driving toward the predicted storm region as I wrote this early this morning.

People who don't get tornadoes might end with huge hailstones and damaging thunderstorm winds. The storms will probably head into Indiana and Kentucky (again!) tonight, with the risk of damaging storms there.

Tomorrow, the best chances of severe weather are in Illinois and southern Wisconsin, where there could be a few tornadoes, says the Storm Prediction Center. 

Bad storms could also occur anywhere through the central and southern Great Lakes, in the Ohio Valley and down all the way to northeastern Texas.

Possibly severe storms could reach the Mid-Atlantic coast Friday, and central Texas as well.

All these storms this week are part of a major weather pattern change that typically happens in the spring.

New England is the last to feel the effects of the pattern change warm up,  but it's starting to. Warm air briefly got into New England late last week, but the past few days, the region has been stuck to the north, the cold side, of a weather front.

This setup helped produce the coldest weather New England has ever seen in April, though that was confined to northern Maine. Periodic snows have been a daily occurence in parts of New England since Saturday, and that will continue today and tonight for some parts of the region.

Accumulations will be light. The warmer weather will finally break through into New England by Friday, and pretty much stay around for the next several days after that.