Rain, severe storms to strike central US repeatedly as 'wild and crazy' pattern sets up

By Alex Sosnowski, AccuWeather.com Senior Meteorologist

April 20,2016; 11:47AM,EDT

 

 

After a lull late this week, severe thunderstorms and flooding downpours are likely to return to parts of the central United States next week and continue into May.
The flooding experienced over parts of Texas early this week may be a sign of things to come over a larger area of the nation.
"The weather pattern is going to get wild and crazy during the last part of April and into May," according to AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Henry Margusity.
Multiple rounds of storms will affect the Plains states and the Mississippi Valley starting next week.
From Sunday into Monday, the first round could bring another dose of heavy storms and flooding downpours to parts of Texas hit hard by flooding in recent days.

Showers and thunderstorms will also extend as far north as the Dakotas, Minnesota and Wisconsin to start the week.
The wet weather will make eastward progress into the Ohio Valley and parts of the Great Lakes and Eastern states during the middle of the week.
A more potent storm is likely to affect the Plains and Mississippi Valley by the middle of the week.
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"The next storm in the series will be a strong one and could bring an outbreak of severe weather, including tornadoes to parts of the central and southern Plains and Mississippi Valley from Tuesday to Wednesday," Margusity said.
Exactly where the storm emerges from the Rockies will determine where the greatest concentration of severe weather will be during the middle of next week.
A flow of drier and cooler air will persist in southeastern Canada and will extend southward into the Northeast at times in the coming weeks.
"Storm systems will tend to get bunched up over the Central states, because of that pattern," Margusity said. "The pattern is not only an ingredient for multiple rounds and days of severe weather, but also increases the risk of flooding, where storms repeat."

There is the potential for inundation, comparable to that recently experienced in Texas, to develop elsewhere over parts of the Plains and perhaps the middle and lower Mississippi Valley in the coming weeks as a pattern of enhanced storminess continues.
A large area of dry weather is still projected to develop over part of the corn belt this summer.