Millions at risk of severe weather in the last week of February as storms barrel across the country

AccuWeather

From snow in the Pacific Northwest on Monday to tornado risks in the Mid-Atlantic on Wednesday, a cross-country storm will pose serious issues in the final days of February.

Transcript

00:00 Our top story tonight is talking about the stormy pattern that will work its way through next week

00:06 and it has widespread impacts across the country including the severe weather threat. It's after

00:12 wrenching rain fell in Little Rock, Arkansas yesterday among the spots that could see the

00:17 potential for severe storms next week. We have a lot more on that in a moment but we begin in

00:24 the northwest where they're going to be getting the impacts first from this storm system. There's

00:28 the view from Portland showing you the sunshine out there all classical.org looking spectacular

00:35 if I don't say so myself but by Sunday things will really start to look quite a bit different and

00:40 feel quite a bit different outside too. Opening up the big board we've got a lot of different

00:46 action going on but the story will be that the colder air does dive into the west and the warmth

00:51 pumps up to the east as we go into early next week and then we're going to flip the scales again

00:57 as we go throughout the week so we will see some big time changes. What does it all come from?

01:02 A storm system that is currently still spinning here off the coast of Alaska so this is where

01:08 our energy is coming from and that is going to create the chance for some snowfall first

01:14 as we push our way into the northwest. We can see the threat Sunday into Washington, Oregon,

01:20 Idaho and parts of Montana. It moves throughout the interior west on Monday. We'll have some

01:25 impacts in the Sierra and some California but most of the activity moves through the interior west

01:30 as we head into Tuesday. Snowfall by the way will occur at some lower elevations Monday into Tuesday

01:37 morning so Monday night we'll focus on the I-5 corridor. There will be some snowflakes mixing in

01:43 towards sea level maybe not completely but we are looking at some rain mixing in below a thousand

01:49 feet but snow mostly above that point so expect significant travel disruptions especially on

01:54 interstate 90 interstate 84 as we're kind of taking some of those elevations off towards the

02:00 east a little higher and creating that snowfall. Here's how this storm system still swinging its

02:05 way through Alaska slides its way right down the coast and just keeps on coming in from that chute

02:11 from British Columbia Canada's coastline into the interior northwest. This is Monday morning. You

02:16 can see all the blue on the map towards the I-5 corridor again trying to get that snow to mix in

02:21 at lower levels and then the core of this storm system starts to work its way out into the plains

02:25 where it's got a warm moist pattern ahead of it and it's going to continue to feed its way into

02:30 the risk for severe weather as we head into Tuesday afternoon and evening and that's all behind a very

02:37 warm pattern. The warmth is going to be partly responsible for this storming pattern. Chicago

02:43 you're going to climb into the 60s this week. It's going to be very warm after actually start

02:49 to the weekend by the way. Kansas City, Missouri 74 for that forecast high. Des Moines 71. It should

02:55 be enough to break the record on Monday set back in the 1800s and it's not just the days that are

03:01 warm the nights are going to stay mild too. We should be in the 20s this time of year Chicago.

03:05 We'll only be going to the 50s Monday night into Tuesday morning and guess what the record low is

03:12 42 degrees so we're going to stay above that. We're going to be a very warm Tuesday morning

03:17 to start things off and that's going to be a record with how warm it will be in the morning

03:21 to start things off. As we go throughout the day on Tuesday though the problem is that warmth doesn't

03:25 come with complete sunshine. It's going to come with clouds and eventually showers and thunderstorms

03:30 and this is our threat for severe weather. The risk for severe weather reaches 50 million people

03:36 as we head through next week. The start of it will be Tuesday from Milwaukee to Shreveport

03:40 including Cincinnati. Places like Indianapolis, Springfield, Peoria all in the risk here for

03:47 severe weather and then that risk moves a little farther to the east as we head into Wednesday.

03:53 We'll include Memphis, Birmingham, Pittsburgh places from eastern western Pennsylvania right

03:59 back to eastern Arkansas for a risk for severe weather. Behind it all then colder air will be

04:04 ushered in beyond the backside of that storm system so next week Wednesday we see that cold

04:09 air slide through the plains and finally pushes towards the east coast by Thursday and Friday

04:14 and check out the temperature difference. We go to near 90 in Dallas as we go on Monday

04:19 to the mid-50s on Wednesday below historical average.

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