Severe storms & elevated tornado risk Mississippi Valley, Missouri north to Minnesota

Photo bystorm prediction center

Severe thunderstorms are going to be front and center in the middle of the US. The Storm Prediction Center is indicating severe thunderstorm risk from Oklahoma to Missouri northward to Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconson. We are also seeing elevated tornado risk in this zone especially in Northern Iowa, Northwestern Wisconsin and Eastern Minnesota.

Photo bystorm prediction center

This is due to a blocking pattern in the Eastern US and a strong storm in South Central Canada and a trailing cold front moving east. Meanwhile in the Eastern US weather conditions are mostly quiet even though we have a storm system sitting offshore east of New Jersey and just south of Southeastern New England.

We do not see any weather issue in the Eastern US other than clouds and the occasional bands of showers that could move through today into Saturday night. Much of the time actually will be no worse than cloudy to partly sunny with temperatures close to average for this time of year.

Photo byTropical Tidbits

Next week the weather pattern changes to one where weather systems will be moving from west to east again. A blocking pattern in the Northeast US will be breaking down and this will allow weather fronts to start moving east. Also we expect to see a tropical depression or a tropical storm form in the Northwest Caribbean or the Gulf of Mexico next week though what that means from the the standpoint of risk to the US coastlines is highly speculative at this point.