Increased Severe Storm Risk Looms for Texas to Kansas Friday

By Alex Sosnowski, AccuWeather.com Senior Meteorologist

April 21,2015; 8:04PM,EDT

 

Following strong to locally severe thunderstorms in part of the South Central states at midweek, the risk of violent storms will increase over the region on Friday.
According to AccuWeather Senior Storm Warning Meteorologist Tyler Dewvall, "Spotty severe thunderstorms will grow in coverage during Thursday afternoon into the evening from parts of Texas and Oklahoma to the lower Mississippi Valley."
The storms are likely to diminish later Thursday night.
The main event of severe weather this week is likely to occur later Friday into Friday night.
AccuWeather.com Senior Meteorologist Dan Kottlowski is concerned about an outbreak of severe weather late this week that can threaten lives and property.

"It really will not be until the end of the week that severe weather really ramps up and a significant outbreak could occur as the main storm system moves out from the Southwest," Kottlowski said.
As a storm system pushes out of the Southwest late this week, the coverage of severe storms is forecast to increase dramatically across a large part of Texas and Oklahoma and expand northeastward into Kansas and Missouri as well as eastward into Arkansas and Louisiana.
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Powerful storms are likely to erupt near the boundary of dry and moist air centered over west-central Texas, western Oklahoma and south-central Kansas during Friday afternoon.
"The most likely area for the storms to fire first on Friday is west of the I-35 corridor in Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas," Kottlowski said.
The risk of severe weather will then quickly expand eastward and northeastward Friday evening.
"The storms will bring the risk of damaging wind gusts, large hail and a few tornadoes," Dewvall said.
Since the storms will occur in areas hit by heavy rain earlier in April, there will be an ongoing risk of flash flooding. Portions of the Gulf Coast and lower Mississippi Valley have received twice their normal rainfall for the month.
Advancing dry air will bring an end to the severe storm risk in western portions of Texas and Oklahoma on Friday night.