The Weather Is About To Change In A BIG Way...

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]It's Tuesday, May 12th, 2026. It's the 132nd day of the year, and we've got a serious severe weather setup brewing. By Saturday, the planes are staring down a dangerous severe weather outbreak with large hail, destructive winds, and strong tornadoes, all potentially on the table before the threat explodes eastward into the Midwest on Sunday. But let's jump right in. That fire weather threat I flagged for you yesterday in the Northern Plains, it's actually getting a little bit worse now. We're adding 60 mph dry micro bursts to the mix, especially farther west. I'm actually highly confident that we're going to see critical fire weather conditions blow up on Wednesday across northeastern Montana and northwestern North Dakota. This is all happening because we got a fast developing low pressure system that's going to pull dry air southeasterly with the winds across the region and that's going to crash the humidity down to a bone dry 10 to 15%.

[00:00:53]Grass out there is the driest it's been in a very long time. So any spark is going to take off and it's going to become almost impossible to stop. So this is happening today. It happened yesterday. It's going to keep happening tomorrow. And then like I said further west we've got a strong jet streak punching over the Great Basin and that's going to fire up some highbased thunderstorms across Utah, Idaho, and southern Wyoming. The air near the ground is so dry that the rain is going to evaporate before it ever hits the surface. But there's still thunderstorms, right? So you still get the wind and you still get the lightning. You've got dry air in place.

[00:01:24]So, it's literally the perfect storm for fires. So, these dry micro bursts could hit hard enough to take down power lines, even without fires, and shove semis uh sideways over the interstate.

[00:01:35]So, make sure you're careful out here in this area as uh this is honestly one of the most impactful weather events that we've got going on right now. But that's going to change as we go forward because uh we're going to be switching gears from fire to thunder and severe weather.

[00:01:48]It looks like the severe weather hibernation is about to end and uh Saturday is shaping up as our first real target day across the plains in a little bit. I'm seeing signals from today's data that uh this threat here is actually getting a little bit more serious compared to what we talked about yesterday. They're probably going to end up issuing an enhanced risk of severe weather for this. And the bullseye is probably going to be somewhere over Oklahoma and Kansas. Uh this does include the I35 corridor, but the risk could end up as far north as Nebraska.

[00:02:17]And the picture is getting sharper by the hour really. By Saturday afternoon, a sharp dry line looks like it's going to set up from the Texas panhandle into western Kansas. And the pattern is flipping from the western ridge uh over to a fire hosing Gulf moisture plume right into the central US. Due points are climbing into the 60s out ahead of this approaching wave of energy. And that's going to load the atmosphere up with a lot of storm fuel. It's going to be like a coiled spring. And when storms fire along that dry line late in the afternoon, they're going to have all that fuel ready to go and they're going to pop up as discrete supercells. The window that I'm watching most closely is about 400 p.m. through 10 p.m. That's when the storms are going to be mature and that's when they're going to tap into that peak daytime heating. And we're talking about a very large hail threat here that can crater windshields and wind gusts strong enough to snap power poles in half. The tornado threat is conditional right now, but if those storms were to stay isolated and grabbed onto some of the low-level shear, a few tornadoes are absolutely on the table.

[00:03:17]People down in Dallas, of course, are going to be asking about this. It still looks like the highest risk is just to your north, but you need a backup plan in case this whole thing shifts south.

[00:03:26]We've seen it happen before. We're still pretty far out, so things could change.

[00:03:29]So, if you got outdoor plans anywhere from Oklahoma City to Topeka, I definitely would make sure I had weatherwise installed on my phone so you can keep an eye on those storms and see who's getting hit and who's getting missed. And here's where it gets even worse. As bad as Saturday looks, Sunday has the potential to be much bigger and much more widespread, especially in the Midwest. Uh, yesterday we were just starting to see hints of this. And today we're looking at a fullon big-time impactful storm looking possible right now, including heavy rain and severe storms with hail and wind. And the tornado threat is going to, you know, materialize potentially as we get closer. But the threat area is enormous here. We're stretching from Oklahoma and Texas again all the way up through Iowa, Illinois, and into the Missouri Valley.

[00:04:10]The same western trough that's going to, you know, cause problems on Saturday is going to deepen hard and it's going to drag even juicier Gulf moisture way farther north. And uh we're going to have a strong surface low, probably tracking sub 1,000 mibars, and that's going to eject into the planes and crank up wind shear across a huge warm sector.

[00:04:29]I'm seeing a growing signal for discrete supercells Sunday afternoon. So, a lot of times with storms like this, you'll get the discrete cells on day one, but not the second day because you have a bunch of messy rain showers and stuff out ahead of it. But it looks like uh this is going to be more of a tornado threat potentially, especially across the central and southern plains. And by Sunday evening, those individual storms will probably merge into a fastmoving squall line. And when that happens, we're going to have destructive straight line winds over 75 mph. And that could be impacting places like De Moines, Cedar Rapids, and Omaha. So, uh, if you're wondering whether to scrap your Sunday evening plans, the answer is probably yes. be indoors before the sun goes down because there's also a flash flood threat layered on top of all this with training downpours that could put water over the roads by dinnertime. And this whole mess is just going to keep pushing towards the Great Lakes and the Ohio Valley into Monday morning. So, it's not just a one-day story. And with the line racing east, while a lot of the Midwest is already going to be in the bed, I got to shout out y'all call.

[00:05:29]Okay, we build it exactly for this. If a warning fires at your address at 3:00 a.m., the phone's going to ring with my voice until you're up, conscious, and moving to shelter. And we're about to dive so much deeper into that. But first, let's shout out today's awesome sponsor. If you've been watching for a while, you know I'm a dog owner. Lately, I've noticed my dog Luna has been doing a lot of scratching and a lot of paw licking. Turns out dog allergies have actually gone up 30% in the last decade.

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[00:07:06]Thank you so much Better Wild for sponsoring today's video. Now, let's get back into the forecast. Okay, so we've got some pretty big storms coming for the planes, but let's forget about that for a second and let's talk about the eastern half of the country because you guys are about to get a real blast of summer. In the last video, I told you to dust off your AC units because the heat dome over the southwest is going to start sliding east and that trend is absolutely locking in. Uh we've got a massive upper level ridge. It looks like it's going to plant itself over the Mississippi Valley, the Mid-Atlantic, and the East Coast. And the window that I'm really watching is May 17th through May the 25th. That's when the pattern really takes hold. If this ridge sets up the way that I think it will, it's going to clamp a lid on the atmosphere, clear out the clouds, and let the sun bake everything underneath it. We're talking about actual air temperatures in the '9s across Kentucky, Virginia, and the Carolinas. This is like middle of July heat in the middle of May. If you're headed to the Coca-Cola 600 in conquered, North Carolina on May 24th, I would definitely be prepared for brutal heat in those grand stands and pack way more water than what you think you'll need. It's still several days out and just like the severe weather, this uh hot weather thing can shift around a little bit, but the signal is very, very loud and it looks like we're going to be getting straight into a sweaty, oppressive summer over here on the east.

[00:08:23]And speaking of how stuff can shift around a little bit, that applies here with the nice weather outlook. In the last video, we talked about how the nice weather on Thursday was going to be more up in the Midwest, but it's actually shifted south a little bit. So, it's not all doom and gloom down here. We've got some genuinely good news. The atmosphere is going to be absolutely flawless on Thursday. And once again, yesterday I had this pegged for the Midwest. Today, it's starting to slide south a little bit because there's going to be a little bit more clouds up there in the Midwest on your Thursday. But if you are in uh Memphis, Birmingham, Huntsville, or Tuscaloosa or anywhere in the Midsouth or, you know, southern Ohio Valley, Thursday is looking like your day. We're going to have a cold front coming in and that's going to leave sinking air behind it, which crushes any chance of uh cloud cover really. And uh I'm leaning towards a true perfect rating on our comfort scale because we're going to have highs around 73 to 75. Due points are going to crash down into the crisp low 50s. So there's really not a hint of mugginess and the rain chance is basically zero.

[00:09:20]This is patio dinner, long hike, windows open weather. Okay, the kind of weather that you've been waiting all year for.

[00:09:27]Honestly, pretty similar to today. Okay, today's really perfect across Kentucky, Tennessee, and a little bit of uh northern Alabama and Mississippi and stuff, but uh it's going to be similar to today. And it's going to be the perfect afternoon to take the dog on a long walk. Maybe one of those rescue beagles from Wisconsin that's been all over the news this week. There is one small catch. It's going to be very sunny, okay? So, if you get sunburnt easily, keep that in mind. But Memphis and Birmingham, Thursday is the day to call in sick. Once again, you've got my permission if you need it. And that's pretty much all the weather talk I have for you today. Thank you guys so much for watching. We're probably going to have another video tomorrow with some more detailed updates on our severe weather coming up. But in the meantime, go check out Yawbot. Once again, 247 live stream over there. We've been working really hard on it. And of course, there is a link in the description for that or you can click one of these cards that's popping up around my head. And uh yeah, thank you guys for watching. and I'll see you in the next one. Goodbye.