This Storm Will Literally Hit Different…

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Over the past week, we have seen an unusual and frankly exhausting amount of severe weather across this country.

[00:00:05]Tornadoes tearing through communities that were not ready for them. Giant hailstones cratering vehicles and rooftops across the central plains.

[00:00:12]Flash flooding overwhelming drainage systems across the southeast for what feels like the fifth time in the past month. And I know a lot of you are sitting there thinking, "Okay, surely the atmosphere is going to take a breath soon and let us all recover." And I hate to be the one to tell you this, but what is coming next is not a breath. It is actually something different, something weirder, something that does not fit the pattern we have been dealing with all spring. And that is exactly what makes it so interesting and in some ways so concerning.

[00:00:41]Because this storm is not going to hit like the ones we have been tracking.

[00:00:45]This storm is literally going to hit different.

[00:00:47]And in this video, I'm going to walk you through exactly what that means, why it is happening, and what you need to know about it before it arrives. So, let us get right into it. But, before we zoom out to the bigger picture, let me make sure everyone is caught up on what is happening right now because the immediate forecast is already action-packed and I do not want anyone to miss it.

[00:01:06]The Storm Prediction Center has two separate slight risks of severe weather in place for today. One up in the Dakotas where we expect some strong storms to fire along a boundary during the afternoon hours with damaging winds and hail possible.

[00:01:18]And a second one stretching from Shreveport, Louisiana all the way to Raleigh, North Carolina where multiple rounds of showers and thunderstorms are going to be rolling through the region all day long. These storms are going to be absolutely packed with moisture and that means torrential downpours are going to be a major part of the story today.

[00:01:35]The Weather Prediction Center has issued an expansive outlook for excessive rainfall today highlighting the flash flooding risk especially up closer to the Appalachian Mountains. The reason this is happening is a cut-off low pressure system that has literally gotten stuck over the southeastern United States and it is dragging an enormous amount of Gulf moisture northward and squeezing it against the mountains like a wet sponge being wrung out against a wall.

[00:01:58]And here's the thing about cutoff lows that I want to make sure everyone understands. Because this is where the weird part starts. We do not normally see cutoff lows behaving like this in late May and early June. This is unusual atmospheric behavior, and it is setting the table for everything that follows over the next several days. And almost the exact same thing is happening simultaneously on the complete opposite side of the country.

[00:02:19]Out west, another one of these pesky low pressure systems is hovering over the region, and it is going to bring significant chances of mountain snow over the next couple of days with temperatures running 15 to 20° below normal across a large area. Cold and snowy out west, flooding rain across the southeast, and sitting right in the middle of all of this, wedged between those two anomalous low pressure systems, a massive heat wave is about to build through the central part of the country and push all the way up into central Canada. Pretty much the entire state of Texas is going to be sitting over 100° by midweek.

[00:02:53]Some of the more northern and typically cold parts of Canada are going to be pushing into the 90s. Meanwhile, the forecasted high for Atlanta, Georgia is only 75°. Record cold and mountain snow on one side, dangerous triple-digit heat building through the middle, flooding rain on the southeast flank.

[00:03:08]All of this happening at the same time from the same pattern. That is what I mean when I say this storm is going to hit different. This is not a single threat moving through. This is a full atmospheric contradiction playing out simultaneously across the entire country.

[00:03:22]Now, let me explain what that extreme temperature contrast between the blazing heat in the middle and the cold air on the edges actually does to the atmosphere, because this is where the severe weather picture for the middle of the week gets really interesting and really dangerous.

[00:03:37]A setup like this with extreme heat and humidity over the plains right next to cold air coming off the Rockies is absolutely perfect for organized clusters of thunderstorms that we call mesoscale convective systems or MCS for short. Here's how they work. Any small disturbance in the jet stream or even just a little bit of cold air pushing off the Rockies can kick-start a thunderstorm. And then the cool outflow from that first thunderstorm wedges underneath the warm air out ahead of it, and that causes more thunderstorms.

[00:04:06]And the cool outflow from those storms does the same thing, and the cycle just repeats over and over again like an expanding bulldozer that mows down all the storm fuel in its path as it progresses across the landscape. These things start small and grow into massive complexes of severe thunderstorms that can stretch hundreds of miles and produce widespread damaging winds, large hail, and heavy rainfall across enormous areas.

[00:04:29]And here is the frustrating part about MCS events. These nasty little boogers are genuinely hard to forecast. The fact that any small trigger can get them going makes it extremely difficult to pinpoint exactly where they will initiate and how far they will go.

[00:04:42]Anybody and everybody from the Central Plains through the Midwest should be on the lookout for fast-moving lines of severe thunderstorms on Wednesday, and again on Thursday, as this pattern continues to produce MCS activity in a similar corridor.

[00:04:54]Do not let the fact that it is not a classic tornado outbreak setup make you complacent about this.

[00:05:00]A fast-moving nocturnal MCS with 60 to 70-mph straight-line winds at 2:00 in the morning is dangerous in ways that do not always get the attention they deserve. Now, before I get into the tropical situation, which is honestly the most genuinely unusual and concerning part of this entire forecast, I want to talk about something that is directly relevant to severe weather season, and that is being able to communicate clearly and quickly when things get dangerous.

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[00:06:16]Big thanks to Grammarly Go for sponsoring today, and now let us get into the part of this forecast that has me most concerned. The flash flooding situation that we are dealing with right now across the Southeast is only going to compound through the weekend as this cut-off low slowly exits to the east. It is going to take the entire weekend for the system to clear the country, and in that time it is going to keep dropping rain on areas that are already completely saturated from multiple previous rounds of heavy rainfall.

[00:06:42]The good news is that by Sunday things should start clearing up in the west as the ridge there widens out, and a brief period of quieter weather looks possible for most of the country during the latter part of next week once the cut-off low finally gets kicked out to sea.

[00:06:55]But, here is where I need to explain something that most people do not think about because it is genuinely counterintuitive. These cut-off lows and upper-level troughs, as annoying and damaging as they are, actually serve as a layer of protection from something potentially much more dangerous lurking in the tropics. You see, hurricanes hate wind shear. They absolutely cannot function in a high wind shear environment. And one of the things that disappears when you get a nice big high pressure ridge building over the country with quiet sunny weather is exactly that wind shear.

[00:07:25]So, if we do get a large and dominant ridge forming over the United States later this month, the doors to the Gulf of Mexico and the East Coast are going to swing wide open for any tropical system that wants to take a run at us.

[00:07:37]But, it is only late May and early June.

[00:07:39]We should not be worrying about that yet.

[00:07:41]Tropical development this early is unusual.

[00:07:44]Active hurricane threats in June are rare. We should only be concerned about this in July and August and September, right? Wrong.

[00:07:51]Right now, as I am putting together this forecast, something very weird and very concerning is unfolding in the Atlantic Ocean, and I need you to understand what it means. The Atlantic Ocean sea surface temperatures right now are off the charts. We're talking about anomalously warm water that extends all the way from the Gulf of Mexico across the Caribbean and out into the main hurricane development region near Africa. And because the water is so extraordinarily warm, every single tropical wave coming off the African coast right now has an unusual and genuinely early season ability to develop into a tropical storm or hurricane as it crosses the Atlantic.

[00:08:23]This is not normal for late May and early June. This is not what the historical climate record looks like for this time of year, and it is happening right now.

[00:08:32]The National Hurricane Center is currently watching two separate waves in the Atlantic, and it is very likely that one of these is going to earn the name Brett in the coming days. The leading wave is the one getting the most attention, and right now most of the model data is continuing to intensify the system and push it toward Puerto Rico.

[00:08:50]From there, the models diverge significantly, and that uncertainty is important to acknowledge.

[00:08:55]If this system continues westward after Puerto Rico and makes it into the Caribbean, it could strengthen further because the sea surface temperatures in the Caribbean are even warmer than they are out in the open Atlantic.

[00:09:05]And a strengthening tropical system in the Caribbean is a system that has the Gulf of Mexico in its potential future track. That is a scenario that demands attention even if the timing is still over a week away.

[00:09:16]On the other hand, some of the models are showing this system drifting northward as it approaches the Lesser Antilles, which would push it up into the North Central Atlantic, where it would likely weaken and dissipate before reaching any major landmass. That would obviously be the best-case scenario, but it is far too early to get attached to any specific track or outcome here.

[00:09:34]What I I you to take away from this is the key message. These tropical cyclones should not be thriving this early in the season. The fact that they are is a signal that the Atlantic is running significantly warmer than normal, and that has implications for the entire hurricane season ahead. This does not mean we are immediately on the verge of a catastrophic hurricane season, but it may be a sign that we end up with stronger and more frequent storms than our initial seasonal forecast suggested.

[00:10:00]If you live anywhere along the Gulf Coast, the East Coast, or in any hurricane-prone area, I would strongly encourage you to get your hurricane preparedness plans in place right now, not in July. Now.

[00:10:10]Review your evacuation routes. Make sure you have supplies. Know your plan before you need it. And make sure you are subscribed to this channel with notifications on because we will be doing live streams for the entire duration of any major hurricane landfalls this season. I also want to give a huge shout-out to everyone who has donated to the Y'all Squad over the past several days to help us provide disaster relief to tornado victims across Mississippi and Texas and Oklahoma.

[00:10:35]You guys are absolutely incredible, and that work genuinely matters to the families who need it. That is all I have got for you today. I will see you in the next one. Goodbye.