More than 30 million on alert for severe weather over Easter weekend
More than 30 million Americans are on alert for severe weather this Easter weekend, as several states in the Heartland have already been slammed with tornadoes, hail and damaging winds.
The National Weather Service's office in Omaha, Nebraska, confirmed 5 tornadoes in the area on Thursday. The strongest of these was an EF-3 tornado that tracked across portions of Northern Douglas County and Southeast Washington County (about 11 miles north of Omaha). Two more tornadoes were confirmed in Nebraska, and the other two tornadoes were confirmed in Iowa.
On Friday, hail larger than tennis ball size was reported in Evansville and Edgerton, Wisconsin, with hail larger than golf ball size hail being reported elsewhere across southern Wisconsin. Downed trees and power lines were reported across portions of southern Wisconsin, northern Illinois, southern Missouri, northwestern Arkansas, central Oklahoma, and northern Texas.
The next round of severe thunderstorms will begin to develop Saturday evening across portions of the southern Plains, from north Texas into Oklahoma, lasting right through the overnight period.
The primary hazards from any severe thunderstorms that move through later Saturday into tonight will be damaging wind gusts and large hail. Isolated, very large hail up to baseball size, could occur in parts of Texas-Oklahoma overnight, along with isolated tornadoes.
The threat will ramp up with overnight severe thunderstorms sweeping across several states and widespread heavy rain developing.
Flash flood threat for Plains, Mississippi Valley
Flood Watches have been posted across portions of six states, from north Texas to southern Illinois, including cities like Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Fort Smith, Arkansas; and St. Louis, Missouri.
A widespread 2-4" of rain is expected through Sunday night with locally up to 6" where the heaviest rain falls.
Winter storm and fire weather threats
The same system that is bringing wet and stormy weather for the Plains and Midwest is also bringing a blast of winter weather across parts of the Four Corners and Central Rockies. Winter weather alerts remain in effect cross multiple states for total snowfall between 6-12 inches with locally up to 20 inches in the higher elevations.
Meanwhile to the south of the wintry weather, yet another day of a critical fire weather threat across the Southwest U.S. Fire Weather Warnings are in effect for southeastern New Mexico and western Texas for Saturday for very low relative humidity (as low as 4%) and wind gusts up to 50 mph.
An elevated fire weather threat is also present for the western Florida panhandle for Saturday because of low relative humidity (25%-35%) and wind gusts up to 20 mph.
