Nearly 50 million under severe weather threat as storms reload after knocking out power to more than 300k
A final round of significant severe weather is expected to erupt over nearly 50 million people across eastern Oklahoma and the Ark-La-Tex region Tuesday afternoon.
A final round of significant severe weather is expected to erupt over nearly 50 million people across eastern Oklahoma and the Ark-La-Tex region Tuesday afternoon.
This marks the sixth consecutive day that NOAA's Storm Prediction Center (SPC) has issued at least a Level 3 out of 5 risk of severe thunderstorms for the Central U.S. and the South.
TORNADO SAFETY: THE SAFEST AREAS TO PROTECT YOURSELF AND WHY TO AVOID OVERPASSES
The outbreak began last Thursday, when a destructive EF-4 tornado struck Enid, Oklahoma, and continued into the weekend, when twisters killed at least two people in Runaway Bay, Texas late Saturday.
On Monday, the SPC issued a Level 4 out of 5 severe weather risk for southeast Missouri and southwest Illinois, warning of the potential for long-track tornadoes. But morning thunderstorms were able to remove some of the dangerous energy from the atmosphere and limited the destruction Monday afternoon.
However, officials in Clinton County, Illinois, and Stone County, Arkansas, said tornadoes caused significant property damage, although no one was hurt or killed.
More than 300,000 customers were still without power early Tuesday, with more than 50,000 in the dark in both Illinois and Michigan, according to PowerOutage.us.
Large hail will be the main threat Tuesday afternoon when storms begin to fire over the Ark-La-Tex region, with hailstones larger than 2 inches in diameter possible.
DEADLY WILDFIRES RAGING ACROSS GEORGIA AND FLORIDA FUELED BY DRY CONDITIONS AND HISTORIC DROUGHT
The Dallas and Shreveport, Louisiana, metro areas are included in this hail threat.
The SPC has issued a Level 3 risk of severe thunderstorms Tuesday for parts of North Texas, southeastern Oklahoma, northern Louisiana, much of Arkansas and eastern Mississippi, as well as the Memphis, Tennessee metro area.
The overall severe weather threat stretches across a corridor from the Big Bend of Texas through Kentucky.
According to the FOX Forecast Center, in addition to large hail, tornadoes will be possible with any supercell thunderstorms that form Tuesday afternoon along a dryline — the boundary between dry air to the west and warm air from the Gulf to the east — that's forecast to set up across Oklahoma and Texas.
WHAT IS A SUPERCELL THUNDERSTORM?
A cold front extending from Oklahoma through the Mississippi Valley will organize thunderstorms into clusters, where damaging wind gusts between 60 and 70 mph will become the main hazard.
Storms will shift east over Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia through the evening.
Stay with FOX Weather for the latest on the upcoming severe weather.
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