Severe storms to spawn flood threat across Plains through Tuesday night

By Alex Sosnowski, AccuWeather.com Senior Meteorologist

April 27,2016; 12:05AM,EDT

 

 

Areas from Austin, Texas, to Lincoln, Nebraska, are on alert for a severe weather outbreak through Tuesday night.
The storms will threaten lives and property and are likely to produce the biggest outbreak of the year so far.
The first severe storms ignited in Nebraska and northeastern Kansas during Tuesday morning and traveled across central and northern Missouri during the midday. This was just a small sample of what unfolded by Tuesday afternoon.
Families, individuals and emergency managers should be prepared to take action.

The individual cluster of severe thunderstorms will continue to march eastward through the lower Ohio Valley through Tuesday night. The thunderstorm cluster has characteristics similar to that of a derecho during Tuesday afternoon. While the cluster has weakened during Tuesday night, hail and damaging wind gusts will still be possible into Wednesday morning.
"Over the Central states, all modes of severe weather are likely, including tornadoes, hail and damaging winds," according to AccuWeather Assistant Director of Storm Warning Services Andrew Gagnon.
Motorists in the region should be on the lookout for rapidly changing weather conditions.
A significant number of the storms will produce hail the size of golf balls or larger, which can cause significant injury and property damage.
If a tornado warning is given for your location, move to the lowest interior room of your home or business without delay.
The area at risk for violent storms will extend from central Texas to southeastern Nebraska and southern Iowa and include the cities of Dallas; Fort Smith, Arkansas; and Kansas City, Missouri.
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The threat for violent storms peaked near sunset but will continue after dark on Tuesday. Flooding will be the main threat through Tuesday night but storms will still be capable of producing hail, damaging winds and an isolated tornado.
The main severe weather outbreak will migrate eastward on Wednesday.
Later in the week, locally severe storms may extend from parts of the central Appalachians to the lower Mississippi Valley.
By the end of the week, a new storm will begin to move out of the Rockies. The next storm system could initialize another round of severe weather over parts of the southern Plains on Friday into Saturday, which may then expand across the Mississippi, Ohio and Tennessee valleys during Sunday.
As with any thunderstorm, frequent cloud-to-ground lightning strikes can occur, along with flash flooding. Move indoors, away from windows at the first clap of thunder. The risk of flash flooding will be greatest, but not limited to areas that have been hit with heavy rainfall in the past week or so. Never attempt to drive through flooded areas.