Tornado Risk Escalates In Mid-South; Gusty Storm Due In Vermont, Too.

There is yet another risk of tornadoes today in parts of the Mid-South
The greatest risk, in the yellow cross hatch area, appares to be in
the western half of Kentucky, northwest Tennessee, southern Illinois
and the southeast corner of Missouri. 

Yesterday, I speculated about the rest of the tornado season in the United States, given the fact that we're off to a bad start.

It's looking like things escalated in that department are escalating today.  At least potentially.

There's a pretty good risk of tornadoes, some potentially strong, in much of Kentucky, and in southern Illinois and Indiana and northwestern Tennessee.

Tennessee, of course, is still reeling from a deadly March 3 tornado outbreak, so I'm sure this makes them nervous.  The Nashville area that was hit earlier this month is in the tornado risk zone, but not in the heart of it. Places north of Nashville are.

NOAA's Storm Prediction Center says thunderstorms should generate in Missouri later this morning and then get stronger by the time they get into western Kentucky by early afternoon.

Strong jet stream winds over the area, wind directions changing with height, plenty of moisture from the south and atmospheric instability should create conditions favorable for strong thunderstorms and tornadoes in the area I described above during the afternoon and evening.  A couple tornadoes could br quiet strong.  If that happens, let it be over rural areas instead of cities and suburbs like earlier in the month.

By tomorrow, there should be a much lower risk of tornadoes in the United States. But a new system might create a low,  but not zero chance of twisters in a small area of western Texas. That should not be a huge deal, however.

The parent storm that helping to produce today's tornado risk is actually just developing in the western Great Lakes. It'll move into Ontario and the western Quebec over the next few days. The storm's cold front will bring a bout of raw, windy weather to us Vermonters Friday.

There could be some mixed precipitation, especially east of the Green Mountains early Friday, which could affect the morning commute.  Gusty south and southeast winds are also expected in much of Vermont Friday, which could bring some isolated power outages.

It won't be a massive wind storm by any means, but a few favored places, especially along the western slopes of the Green Mountains, could see gusts as high as 50 mph Friday.

It'll rain area wide on Friday after any mixed precipitation ends, but it won't be enough to cause any flooding of note.  There has been a fair amount of snowmelt and the Friday rain will add to the runoff. But it won't be enough to make rivers overflow to any real extent.

This sounds to be like it'll be typical March ickiness.  On the bright side, there is a 0% chance of any tornadoes in Vermont this week. But you knew that already.