New storm threat follows deadly tornadoes

AccuWeather's Guy Pearson was live on the AccuWeather Network on May 20 to discuss a new threat for severe weather.

Transcript

00:00Joining me right now is AccuWeather Severe Weather Expert Guy Pearson joining us from our

00:05Severe Weather Center in Wichita, Kansas. Guy, and what a day we had yesterday, but no rest for

00:11the weary as we continue to track that area of energy here. Really quickly, we're going to go

00:17back to the water vapor loop. We see what we're looking at now, Guy, and what I'm going to follow

00:23it up with is the upper area energy. Let's track that system near Kansas City and get your thoughts

00:29on it as it moves northeast today. Good morning, everybody. Certainly the upper level energy that

00:38is over Kansas City, it will continue to scoot northeast today, but we do have another piece

00:43of energy that's circling around the bottom side of this that will be ejecting out across

00:47the middle Mississippi Valley today, and that's what's going to set off our moderate risk area

00:53for severe weather today. You know, everything from Illinois on south, and you can sort of see as it

01:00does move, that piece of energy does move towards the northeast, it sort of does weaken with time. So,

01:05you know, that's why we really focused more on a moderate risk today is the simple fact that this

01:10is a messy pattern. There's no real true just one piece of energy coming out to really help drive

01:16everything. It's little bits and pieces, and it's just a matter of where you are in relation to that

01:21and the timing of heating and, of course, the moisture in place as well. It's a little concerning

01:27to me, Guy, when we take a look at future radar here, and we really had a very long discussion

01:33the last 24 hours whether we wanted to post a high risk in that area across Kentucky and Tennessee,

01:41and you could see the concern with the future radar. Just a lot of discrete those individual

01:48cells as we go through this afternoon and tonight.

01:54Yeah, certainly that piece of energy we were looking at in the upper levels there as it starts

01:59to move across that mid-Mississippi Valley during that time frame. We do have a lot of discrete cells

02:04that sort of extend back along the front across the south of Mississippi back into Louisiana,

02:09but then you do have where areas are able to clear out today. So from southern Illinois back through

02:15southeastern Missouri and certainly western Kentucky, western Tennessee, we could still have some

02:21discrete cells in there that would pose that tornadic risk later today.

02:27Yeah, and then the one thing it does look as though the thunderstorms will be able to weaken

02:31later on tonight after midnight. That's some good news here. But within that moderate risk,

02:37you know, I think we're both aligned with, hey, listen, you got to watch that whole area,

02:42obviously. But it's that area that bothers me, guys, southern Illinois, southern Indiana in the Tennessee.

02:52Yeah, I think certainly, you know, tornadoes, large hail, damaging winds today. But certainly

02:58this high risk area that we have as far as specifically for a tornado threat, you know,

03:03this really is the focus area and the most likely area that would see tornadoes today,

03:08given all the factors in play with the messy setup that we have.

03:12Is there a concern for long track tornadoes today in that area? We've had that bullet point

03:17on the map. We still feel comfortable with that.

03:22Yeah, I think at the moment, you know, some of the discrete cells to the south,

03:26if it gets oriented just right with that piece of energy coming out,

03:30that could be, you know, a case with maybe one or two of them.

03:34I don't think it'll be very many from that long track standpoint. But certainly, you know,

03:39in this area, you want to keep a heads up as we go through the afternoon and the evening hours

03:44and make sure you're staying on top of the severe weather in your area.