Tornado Alley will “roar back to life” Thursday with five days of potentially severe weather, forecasters warned Wednesday.
Forecasts shared by AccuWeather warned that millions of Americans living in more than a dozen states within our heartland will likely be hit by potential tornadoes, damaging wind gusts up to 80 miles per hour, as well as large hail, starting on Thursday and lasting through Monday. A region from Austin, Texas, by way of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Little Rock, Arkansas, through to Chicago, Illinois, is under serious risk.
“We’re tracking two storms and that means rounds of severe thunderstorms. All forms of severe weather are possible,” AccuWeather’s chief on-air meteorologist Bernie Rayno said. The storms will start late Thursday and go through the night as another comes through on Friday, threatening a half-million square miles of U.S. land.
A dangerous severe weather event will threaten millions across more than a dozen states in the nation’s heartland, starting Thursday and continuing through the weekend. https://t.co/dnMHM689zb pic.twitter.com/fm9zfBbr58
— AccuWeather (@accuweather) April 23, 2024
“The setup for Friday centered on Iowa looks very similar to April 16, when a dozen tornadoes touched down in the state,” Rayno noted. (RELATED: This Utterly Mind-Blowingly Horrifying Video Of A Tornado Looks Fake. It’s Not.)
But the storms will also encompass the Great Plains, half of Mississippi, Oklahoma, Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas, Nebraska and Texas. “Saturday could bring another day where there are a dozen or more tornadoes from Kansas City to Dallas,” Rayno added.
Those living within the threat zone should be prepared for straight-line winds, possible flash flooding. Remember to always check the weather forecast before leaving your home and never drive into flowing water, even if you think it looks shallow.