After dangerous weather targets areas around St. Louis on March 14, the threat will shift to the Gulf Coast and parts of the Southeast on Saturday, March 15.
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00:00Our late week problems we inherit from this storm moving through Oregon and California right now.
00:07Heavy snow, heavy rain, this is what's going to traverse the Rockies and open up the door for a lot of trouble for us.
00:13So as we track this storm moving east here, we have a strong area of low pressure that's going to be parking itself
00:18and moving east across parts of Nebraska.
00:21And the winds aloft are going to be dictating what goes on in the ground.
00:24We have a screaming wind coming down from the Rockies into the high plains.
00:28That's a down-sloping dry wind to the west.
00:30Meanwhile, a little hint of moisture coming out of the Gulf.
00:33That's going to fuel some thunderstorms that break out.
00:36And we have a big risk of severe weather just east of that zone of low pressure.
00:41Extra lift in the atmosphere, so we've got the wind.
00:44Even separate from thunderstorms, we'll have gusts of wind 40 to 50 mph, 50 to 60 in the central plains,
00:4960 to 70 mph plus gusts into Texas and eastern New Mexico.
00:53So volatile fire weather there.
00:55One thing I want to point out, while the most widespread thunderstorms are going to be in the parts of the Mississippi Valley,
01:01the limiting factor is moisture.
01:03But with that said, there will still likely be some updrafts into parts of Arkansas.
01:07They get going, and they will be unattached to other storms.
01:11And there will be basically supercell thunderstorms that could be rotating and bringing a tornado risk to some.
01:17So that's more of an issue for Arkansas and up into Missouri.
01:21The greatest risk overall for all hazards, damaging wind, tornadoes, hail, and some flash flooding,
01:27will be up into parts of the St. Louis metro all the way down, then into Arkansas.
01:30This is where we have fewer but violently rotating thunderstorms into Arkansas
01:35and a greater number of thunderstorms, some of which will be rotating into the St. Louis metro.
01:39The greatest motivation behind our high risk is the wind, but the tornado threat's not far behind.
01:45Friday night, blizzard breaks out into the northern plains.
01:48Storms push east, and then as we step into the day Saturday,
01:51we have a significant risk of just as many strong to severe storms,
01:55perhaps with more moisture in the low levels of the atmosphere.
01:58It might be a little easier for the atmosphere to spin some tornadoes up
02:01and have them touch down instead of anything elevated into places like Mississippi and Alabama.
02:06So a high risk of severe weather, tornadoes, a big concern for the Gulf Coast states
02:10on Saturday afternoon and Saturday night, Damien.