Quiet Severe Season Might Perk Up This Week

Today's Weather Outlook

The new week will pick up in the midst of a highly active weather pattern that will be certain to dampen spirits heading into the workweek.

A developing storm system over the northern and central Rockies will team up with low pressure across the Mid-Mississippi Valley to bring a plethora of weather worries stretching from the West Coast to the Ohio River Valley.

Rain will fall across the lower elevations of the Northwest, the northern and central Plains, and the Mid-Mississippi Valley today. Thunderstorms will be possible throughout the day along the Pacific Northwest Coast and the northern and central Rockies, while stronger storms with an added threat of hail move in across the Central Plains tonight.

The higher elevations across the northern portions of the Mountain West will receive a shot of reinvigorating snow to liven the lacking snow packs. Snow will remain over the Cascades, Sierra Nevada and the northern and central Rockies through the day, while rain transitions over to snow across the northern and central High Plains overnight.

Further eastward, near-freezing temperatures will allow for the development of a wintry mix of rain, snow, and ice from northeastern Montana to central North Dakota, as well as from north-central Iowa to southwestern Ohio. A light accumulation of snow will be held to the below-freezing temperatures over portions of the Upper Mississippi Valley and the Great Lakes.

The storm system that soaked the South over the weekend will depart off the southern Atlantic Coast today, but not before raining out a few more drops of moisture across the Southeast. Rain will fall across the Southeast and the Carolinas early, sparking a few thunderstorms along the way across Georgia and Florida. Stronger thunderstorms will be possible across portions of northern Florida, where gusty winds and hail could appear.

The rest of the U.S. can expect to see a sunny start to the week, with brisk winds swiping across the Mountain West and the Northeast.

Frigid teens and 20s will keep residents in the extreme Northeast in their winter-wear to start the week. Cool 30s and 40s will sweep east of the Missouri River Valley to the coastal Mid-Atlantic, while keeping chances for snow alive across the higher elevations of the Mountain West. Warmer 70s and 80s will keep in over Southern California, the Desert Southwest, southern Plains, lower Mississippi Valley and Florida, leaving the rest of the U.S. to deal with mild early-spring 50s and 60s.

Quiet Severe Season Might Perk Up This Week

One of the quietest starts to the U.S. severe storm season might finally be concluding, with some organized severe storms developing this week across the central Plains.

The dramatic lack of severe weather - - with only 28 tornadoes reported in 2015, well-below the 173 average for this time of the year -- is the result of a persistent weather pattern that has kept much of the U.S. east of Mississippi River cold and the U.S.`s Western third warm and extremely dry.

However, the large polar jet stream plunge into the eastern U.S. that kept the East shivering the last several months and keeping the severe storms at bay is finally starting to retreat back into Canada, allowing more warm and water-laden sub-tropical air from the Gulf of Mexico to edge northward across the southern U.S.

This warm and water-laden air, along with a strong cold front zipping across the Plains and dry and warm air moving off the southern high Plains and southern Rockies, is a key ingredient to trigger spring severe thunderstorms across the central U.S.

Starting later Tuesday, the first of a two-day severe weather event will develop across the eastern Plains into the central Mississippi and lower Ohio valleys. The trigger for this event is a strong upper-level trough moving out of the northern Rockies and into the central Plains on Tuesday, inducing the development of a strong storm system over the central Plains later Tuesday. This system will move into the Upper Midwest, with a new storm system poised to move out of the Rockies and across the Plains, dragging a strong cold front along its journey later Wednesday into early Thursday.

Severe storms capable of producing damaging winds and hail will develop from northeastern Texas into southwestern Missouri. An isolated tornado cannot be ruled out, but the biggest concern will be high wind gusts and hail. These storms, as the move eastward into Arkansas and southern Missouri, will fizzle out Tuesday evening. Springfield, Mo., could be in the line of these Tuesday storms.

The Wednesday event will likely produce more widespread severe weather than Tuesday`s warm up round. Thunderstorms will develop from the southern Plains of eastern and southern Oklahoma and northern Texas northeastward into southern Illinois and the lower Ohio Valley. These storms, triggered by a trailing cold front that will clash with seasonable warm and humid air over the southern Plains and lower Mississippi Valley, will produce damaging winds and large hail through early Thursday morning. Once again, a few tornadoes cannot be ruled out Wednesday afternoon, especially across parts of eastern and southern Oklahoma and southwestern Missouri.

Wichita Falls, Texas, Oklahoma City and Tulsa, Okla., and Springfield and St. Louis, Mo., could be in the line of Wednesday`s storms.

Remember, this is time of the year is part of spring severe weather season in the U.S. Historically, tornado season in the Southeast and Gulf Coast region tends to be from February to April. The peak tornado season for the southern and central Plains occurs from May to mid-June. In the northern Plains and Upper Midwest, tornado season is in June and July.