Tornado Risk East-central U.S. Today to Ohio Valley Tomorrow

Fig. 1: NOAA/NWS latest weather watch, warning, and advisory areas.

Discussion: The latest West U.S. storm is shifting eastward for midweek. However, widespread high wind and heavy mountain snows continue to affect parts of the West U.S. (Fig. 1). A Blizzard Warning expands across the Dakotas and into northwest Minnesota. Deep snow cover amplifies. To the south, high wind across a drought area causes widespread Red Flag Warnings for the central and southwest Great Plains. Acceleration of drought in this region.

Severe thunderstorms affect the East-central U.S. today (Fig. 2). Tornadoes are expected in Iowa/Illinois to Missouri to Arkansas today. On Wednesday, the severe weather risk expands to include the Ohio Valley to Arkansas and Louisiana and includes additional tornado risk centered on the Ohio/Western Tennessee Valley (Fig. 3). Strong to severe thunderstorms are likely in the Mid-Atlantic States on Thursday (Fig. 4).

The NOAA/WPC 5-day quantitative precipitation forecast yields persistent wet weather into the Northwest U.S., heavy snows in the North-central States, and a stalled cold front focusing heavy rain that backs into Texas (Fig. 5). However, the Western Texas to central Great Plains drought area misses the rain.

The late season heating demand has shifted below normal and trends warmer overnight (Fig. 6). The HDD count is in the 50-100 range while CDD are in the 10-20 range through April 20^th.

Fig. 2-4: NOAA/SPC severe weather outlook for each of the next 3 days.

Fig. 5: NOAA/WPC 5-day precipitation outlook for the U.S.

Fig. 6: U.S. gas population weight HDD forecast utilizing all models, their consensus, and comparison with 24 hours ago and the 10-year/30-year climatology.