The Plains and Midwest regions of the United States face a weekend of dangerous severe weather including the risk of tornadoes starting on Friday.
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00:00 There's a risk of tornado damaging winds and large hail. I think the worst days for severe weather,
00:04 specifically tornadoes, is going to be tomorrow and then on Saturday. We won't get a break until
00:10 maybe the middle part of the upcoming week. Now with that, I do want to bring in our AccuWeather
00:15 severe weather expert, Guy Pearson, from our Severe Weather Center in Wichita, Kansas.
00:20 Guy, already some thunderstorms. Ariella was talking about that behind you. I want to take
00:25 you out to the satellite picture here and you can clearly see the next two storms. That's why
00:30 it's so many days because it's just not one storm tracking producing the severe weather, it's two.
00:37 Yep, certainly. We've got that one focus in the southwest that's currently out there today that's
00:45 going to help develop those storms along the dry line across western Kansas, as Ariella was talking
00:51 about. But then it's that second storm that's labeled this weekend on the map here. As that
00:56 starts to shift southwest or southeast into the southwest, then that's really going to fire things
01:03 up for what it is Friday then into Saturday as well. Yeah, all right. Let's talk about, let's
01:08 take them one by one, Guy. I want to show you that first system and get your impressions because this
01:12 is what has concerned me the entire time. Watch that upper level. I'm going to stop this as we
01:17 head into Friday night. This looks to me, Guy, eerily similar. This closed out of upper low
01:23 that's strengthening in Nebraska, similar to what we saw last week,
01:27 April 16th, where we had 17, 18 tornadoes across parts of Iowa.
01:33 Yep, it is a very similar setup. You've got that upper level low. The timing for the best severe
01:43 is a little bit off from what we would expect for a widespread severe weather outbreak. But
01:48 nonetheless, you get that dynamics in there next to the upper level low, and we will have some
01:54 severe weather associated in that area. Yeah, let's talk about that really quick. I drew this
01:59 graphic up this morning. Kind of a unique setup here with that warm front. We're always talking
02:04 about lifting warm fronts, and that's the southern side of the warm front, Guy, that you always have
02:09 to worry about tornadoes. Yep, that is certainly the case. The different wind directions that you
02:17 have associated with this particular graphic, and certainly that mid-level flow and that dynamics
02:23 that we talked about coming out of the southwest, feeding right into that. You have all your
02:28 moisture that's already in place, as well as then your dynamics, and then certainly you have enough
02:34 lift with that warm front in the area to get you that extra lift up. And certainly, tornadoes and
02:43 boundaries, weather boundaries in general, are always different wind directions. You start adding
02:48 in different wind directions, and certainly then that's going to help with the additional wind
02:52 shear that we need aloft to spin things up. I want to get your impression on the future radar
02:57 as we go through tomorrow. There we go. I'm going to stop this right around three, four o'clock,
03:02 and there we go. You see what I see here, these individual discrete cells, Guy.
03:08 Yep, that is certainly the case. We have all the storms that develop overnight tonight and sort of
03:16 move east with time across that same area, but then it's the actual next piece of energy that
03:23 starts to come out and develop right along the boundary that is in the area, and we get things
03:30 to spin up from a severe weather aspect with those isolated storms is certainly an ideal
03:36 environment for then those conditions to be tornadic in some of these situations. And certainly,
03:42 you know, probably north of Kansas City towards, you know, towards Des Moines, that's going to be
03:49 the, what we're looking at, but certainly anything, anybody in the Omaha, Kansas City area needs to
03:55 be on the lookout tomorrow and be aware of where those initial thunderstorms develop and move
04:01 northeast after that. Really quickly, Guy, we've been discussing about perhaps lowering the
04:07 threshold or the threat area south of Kansas City toward eastern Oklahoma, not that there won't be
04:12 severe weather, but perhaps the severe thunderstorms here are going to be very spotty. Is that something
04:17 you guys are considering as well? Yep, yeah, I would say so. It's probably going to be more of
04:24 the some nature. Just early in the day, more rain less likely to have severe. All right, our severe
04:30 weather expert Guy Pearson joining us from our severe weather studio in Wichita, Kansas. We'll
04:36 be talking with you over the next couple of days. Guy, thanks for joining us.