00:00The 2026 severe weather season is already historic, and it's only just begun.
00:05The National Weather Service in Chicago has confirmed an EF3 tornado struck the Kankakee River Valley in Illinois,
00:12with winds reaching 160 miles per hour.
00:16Alongside it, a new Illinois state record.
00:19Hailstones exceeding 6 inches in diameter, roughly the size of a softball.
00:24AccuWeather is now warning that the highest hail risk this season stretches from Texas all the way to Alabama,
00:31with a second danger zone across Iowa, Nebraska, northern Missouri, and Kansas.
00:36Here is the warning forecasters want every American to hear.
00:40Flash floods and damaging wind gusts kill just as many people as tornadoes.
00:45And they hit a far larger area.
00:47Flash flooding in densely populated communities can produce billion-dollar disasters, even in years.
00:54With below-average tornado counts, with La Nina fading and El Nino building,
00:58the upper atmosphere is setting up repeated rounds of severe thunderstorms across the central and Midwestern U.S.
01:05Do not wait for a tornado warning to prepare.
01:08The season is already here.
Comments