Tracking severe storms this weekend

AccuWeather

In today's Forecast Feed, AccuWeather's Damien Lodes shares the latest on a severe storm threat that may impact the central United States this weekend.

Transcript

00:00Welcome to the forecast feed. This is where we give you a behind-the-scenes look at what our

00:05thinking is going into the forecast and throughout the next couple of days we're going to be tracking

00:10an elevated risk of severe weather peaking on Saturday. So if you have any weekend plans you

00:16definitely need to pay attention to the forecast. So here's the overall risk zone that we are

00:20tracking. Heading into tomorrow there will be a risk of severe weather from the southern plains

00:25up into the northern plains especially that I-90 corridor there in South Dakota. We're going to be

00:30watching out for an elevated risk of a large hail here as we go forward. After that heading into

00:36Friday you can see that risk of severe weather is going to slowly shift its way from west to east.

00:41So the I-35 corridor from Oklahoma City through Wichita, Kansas City, Des Moines will be watching

00:47out for an elevated risk of severe weather across this region but that's Friday's risk. Once again

00:53the highest potential of severe weather will be on Saturday because take a look at this. This zone

00:58here between I-30 and I-40 in Arkansas that's where it looks like we'll see the highest potential

01:03of severe weather. In this potential we're talking large hail, damaging winds, and yes the highest tornado

01:10threat we have seen across this region since the springtime. So we will be watching out for that

01:14elevated risk. So here's what we are thinking. Here's what's going into the overall thinking of what we

01:19are tracking here for you. So what you're looking at first is going to be the view of the upper levels

01:25of the atmosphere. Right here you are looking up about 3-4-5 miles in the atmosphere and what we

01:31normally look for in this zone is a couple of dips there in those lines you see and when you really

01:36start to see those bright colors on the map that is when we start to see as meteorologists that's when

01:40our ears start to perk up a little bit because whenever we start to see those bright colors that's

01:45when we start to see the elevated risk there for severe weather. Now any type of severe weather

01:50whether it's a hail storm whether it's a tornado anything like that you need moisture in the low

01:55levels of the atmosphere and what you're looking at right now is the moisture levels that we were

02:00going to be forecasting for. So anytime you see green on this particular map there will be enough

02:05moisture to support supercell thunderstorms and overall just severe weather. So from Friday into Saturday

02:12you can see just this plume of gulf moisture being pulled across the coast into the interior

02:17and that's why we're really going to be watching out for that risk of severe weather there across

02:21eastern Oklahoma into Arkansas and especially Missouri. Missouri is going to be watching out for

02:25an elevated risk of severe weather as well. So what you're looking at right now is the the amount of

02:30instability in the atmosphere and instability is what really gets those thunderstorms to just explode in

02:36intensity. So as we had throughout the day on Saturday you can see Saturday morning we're not seeing a whole lot

02:41but then as we had in the Saturday afternoon we're going to start to see an elevated risk there of

02:46these storms starting to develop. Now this isn't like the kind of setup you would expect in

02:50you know early to late May across the southern plains in Oklahoma but there will be enough instability in

02:56the atmosphere to support some severe weather. So the overall zone we're going to be watching out is

03:01between Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Missouri. I'll go ahead and highlight this here for you of what we're mainly

03:06going to be watching the zone and the zone is going to be this zone right here on the map. So that's

03:11what we're going to be mainly watching out for. So that's the the amount of instability in the

03:15atmosphere. Whenever you look at the what we call the supercell composite parameter this is the the

03:21weather model's interpretation of are the conditions favorable for supercell thunderstorms and as we had

03:26throughout Saturday you can really see those numbers really start to jump up Saturday afternoon

03:31across Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Missouri. And when you look at the the model's interpretation of tornado

03:37potential that also ramps up there across eastern Oklahoma into Arkansas and Missouri as well. So

03:43heading throughout the next couple of days we will be watching out for an elevated risk of severe weather

03:48pretty much every single day as we head throughout the weekend but it does look like the highest potential

03:52for severe weather including tornadoes will be on Saturday.

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