Earlier next week, half of the U.S. population may be on the road to severe thunderstorms
The out-of-time warmth sets the stage for thunderstorms, able to bring powerful winds, heavy hail and tornadoes to nearly 175 million people Sunday and Monday in the central and eastern U.S.
March has suffered a lot of powerful storms and reported more for tornadoes compared to the same time last year. A fatal storm suffered a fatal attack two weeks ago and could fall into the road to the next thunderstorm. While the forecast this weekend doesn’t seem so extreme, the dangers are likely to increase rapidly, with millions of people likely to be hurt.
The weekend will start to feel more like late May or early June from the plains to the East Coast, then develop extensive storms and powerful cold fronts in the mid- and eastern U.S. games.
There may be some severe thunderstorms Saturday night causing devastating winds and hail, mainly from Kansas and Missouri to Iowa, as the storm begins to form. But once a storm hits, there will be wider and dangerous threats of bad weather on Sunday.
This is what you expect this weekend and early next week.
Strong, long-lived tornado on Sunday may
The cold front from the Midwest to the South Plains on Sunday will remove any late sun-like heat in the eastern half of the country. The cold air ahead will clash with warm, humid air in front of it, and explosive thunderstorms will develop where these two air communities meet.
More than 25 million people were at risk of level 5 thunderstorms on Sunday, according to the Storm Forecasting Center. Nashville, Indianapolis and St. Louis are just some of the major cities in this wide range of risks. In the surrounding areas, including Dallas, Chicago and Cleveland, another 45 million people are at Level 5 risk.
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The storm will start from Illinois to eastern Texas on Sunday afternoon and expand the east on Sunday evening, and expand the east in much of the Mississippi, Ohio and Tennessee valleys.
The larger hailstorm than golf balls are expected to have destructive gusts and tornadoes, SPC said.
The SPC warns that the atmosphere will be used for tornadoes, some of which may be strong EF2 or higher and have a strong lifespan.
Most of the strongest thunderstorms will occur after dark and increase the danger: Nighttime tornadoes are almost twice as likely to occur during the day, a 2022 study.
Some storms can also dump heavy rain, potentially causing flash flooding anywhere from the south to the Midwest.
It’s already been a busy year for tornadoes, even if the peak of bad weather seasons is a few weeks away. There have been about 300 tornado reports since 2025, and by the end of March 2024, there have been 164 reports.
Since 2010, there have been only three tornadoes in the first three months of this year: 2023, 2017 and 2013.
There was a huge increase in tornadoes late in the spring, with activity continuing into December, with a total of nearly 2,000 tornadoes reported. It marks the second largest tornado report on record, second only to 2017.
100 million people are at risk of severe thunderstorms on Monday
The sun rises on Monday and powerful thunderstorms will continue. Sunday night’s destruction storms could potentially range from Appalachians to Louisiana and Mississippi Monday morning.
Some of these thunderstorms may lose some motivation in the first few hours of the day and then become more severe in the afternoon.
On Monday night, thunderstorms could stretch almost the entire East Coast. More than 100 million people from the south to the northeast are below the risk of a Level 5 storm, SPC said.
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Major cities from New Orleans to Boston are at the same risk level, but different regions may face slightly different threats.
Currently, the Northeast faces greater risks of strong wind gusts rather than tornadoes and hail. Atmospheric conditions from the mid-Atlantic Ocean to the southern Gulf Coast are more likely to support all hazards, including hail and tornadoes.
Thunderstorms will continue overnight, mainly from the mid-Atlantic to the northeast, and then exit the Atlantic on Tuesday morning.
But soon after, another serious thunderstorm threat arrived. The SPC highlighted another very large area – from Texas to the Midwest – to watch a severe thunderstorm on Wednesday.
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