Early-Week Powerful Storms Pepper N. Plains To Southeast U.S.

A storm-filled weather pattern will budge little from the northern Plains to the Ohio Valley, Southeast, and Carolinas these final few days of July. Damaging wind gusts and large hail will be the main risks, although a few tornadoes will be possible.

A massive area of upper-level high pressure will move little from the central and southern Plains into the Middle and Lower Mississippi valleys. A series of fast-moving upper-level disturbances cruising along the northern and eastern edges of this area of high pressure will combine with abundant low-level moisture. The result will be several, even repetitive complexes of strong to severe thunderstorms.

A Severe Thunderstorm Watch remains in place for central Iowa, including Des Moines amd Ottumwa.

Several dangerous thunderstorm clusters or complexes have followed a similar path to Monday, plunging southeast from Iowa and Missouri into Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, and northern Georgia to Upstate South Carolina and western North Carolina. The greatest severe weather danger zone highlighted by the government’s Storm Prediction Center blankets northeastern Nebraska to far northeastern Missouri and northwestern Illinois tonight where there is an Enhanced Risk. Des Moines, Sioux City, Council Bluffs, Iowa City, and Ames, Iowa, plus Norfolk, Neb., are a few of the bigger cities within the elevated risk area.

A few more intense thunderstorm complexes are rumbling across western and west-central Kentucky into middle Tennessee, as well as from north-central Georgia and Upstate South Carolina into the Carolina Piedmont tonight. This activity will pose a damaging wind gust and large hail risk, although an isolated tornado cannot be ruled out.

Most at risk for a dangerous storm encounter overnight is the corridor from just south of Bowling Green, Ky., to Nashville, Tenn., as well as southeast of Atlanta to near and south of Columbia, S.C.

Be sure to keep up with the latest watches and warnings on the WeatherBug website and our WeatherBug app. Also, it would be smart to have a severe weather plan in place in case severe weather strikes your area.