Severe storm threat moves from the Midwest to the Gulf Coast this weekend

AccuWeather

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.

Transcript

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.

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