Upper Midwest faces rare severe weather threat

AccuWeather

AccuWeather's Severe Weather Expert Guy Pearson reports on the building storms in the Midwest that are expected to bring strong wind gusts and hail.

Transcript

00:00Joining me right now is AccuWeather Severe Weather Expert Guy Pearson from our Severe Weather State Center in Wichita, Kansas.

00:07And, you know, Guy, before we talk about what's going to happen this afternoon,

00:11I've actually been waiting for these thunderstorms in Minnesota to start getting very close to being warned for wind and hail.

00:22Nothing yet, but boy, they seem to be getting better organized, don't they?

00:26Yeah, good morning. They do seem like they're getting better organized this morning.

00:33You know, we've got all the main ingredients right there is sort of the boundary here is lifting north,

00:38but it's helping to drive these storms.

00:40You know, we are seeing some indications within that.

00:44There may be certainly some gusty winds and probably some smaller size hail at the moment.

00:49It's trying to build and we get every pocket here or there and it starts to intensify a little bit,

00:54but then nothing really to sustain it to really get us to large hail or severe wind speeds as of yet.

01:01All right, let's play this forward here.

01:03The other thing that's impressive, and you can see how much energy we have,

01:06is because when you track these thunderstorms, Guy, look how fast they move.

01:11I stopped this two hours from now and they're already north of Minneapolis.

01:17Then they move across northern Wisconsin.

01:19Then we look to the west, and this should be the beginning of the severe weather, right, later on this morning.

01:28That is correct.

01:29We get this initial push out of the way.

01:31We get some breaks in the clouds as part of that boundary riding north,

01:36also clearing things out from the cloud perspective, get that sunshine back in there,

01:41and then really help that instability and extra energy that we need from the surface.

01:47So then as the main line itself comes out and the main piece of energy,

01:51then that two together then fires this main line that we'll see across southern Minnesota and Iowa here late this morning,

01:58but mainly this afternoon and into the evening hours.

02:01What do you see when you see this future radar?

02:03I see a line of thunderstorms, but these look alternatic to me, Guy.

02:11Yeah, I mean, they're sort of segmented out just enough to where the inflow into each storm can maintain itself,

02:18to where instead of, you know, we've talked about linear in the past where everything goes all at once,

02:23and then you don't have that airflow that's able to, you know, keep particular storms or supercells going long enough

02:31to where we potentially get those long-track tornadoes that we're potentially talking about today

02:36or, you know, the number of tornadoes as well.

02:39So those individual discrete cells or breaks in the line even to where you get good inflow on the southern parts of those,

02:46those are the areas that you're going to want to be concerned with as you get into later this afternoon and this evening.

02:52I've been talking about this, that, you know, having a high risk in Minneapolis isn't necessarily rare,

02:59but it's early to be talking about a high risk.

03:03Here we are late April, all the way north into the Twin Cities.

03:10Yeah, certainly, you know, typically their best time for tornadoes is actually closer to later May,

03:16probably the beginning of June.

03:18But, you know, Mother Nature doesn't always work on the same calendar every year,

03:22and so we're looking at, you know, the whole storm system itself being farther north.

03:26We've had all the ingredients.

03:28I mean, I was taking a look at the low-level clouds here in Wichita this morning,

03:31and they were streaming from south to north.

03:34It was quite humid already here yesterday to begin with,

03:36and so that moisture has continued to feed, you know, farther north another 12 to 18 to 24 hours

03:42by the time we get to this afternoon,

03:44and all that moisture and energy is going to be pushed up to the north here in this area.

03:49So while it's not the normal time frame, all the ingredients are there,

03:54and we need everybody to make sure you're paying attention later today and this evening.

03:59AccuWeather Severe Weather Expert, Guy Pearson.

04:01Again, thanks for joining us here.

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