A HUGE Storm Train Is Coming... (May 23, 2026)

Añadido: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]Right now, not tomorrow, not this weekend, right now, a severe weather machine is firing up across the United States that is unlike anything this forecasting season has seen so far.

[00:00:09]Every model I have open on my screen, every forecast tool, every business, when every instrument in the room points at the exact same target simultaneously, you stop what you are doing and you get in front of a camera immediately. So, that is what I am doing. A storm train is coming and and I am not using that phrase loosely. I'm not talking about a couple of scattered storms here and there that blow through one afternoon and clear out by dinner.

[00:00:32]I'm talking about a relentless, back-to-back, seemingly never-ending conveyor belt of severe thunderstorm systems that is going to fire up across this country every single day for the next 7 to 10 days, possibly longer, damaging winds that snap mature trees at the trunks, baseball-sized hail that punches through car windshields, collapses lightweight roofing, and sends people to the emergency room if they are caught outside without cover. And tornadoes. Multiple days, multiple areas, in the most unpredictable fashion forecasters have encountered in years.

[00:01:02]Before I break any of this down geographically, I want to give you a number. In 2025, State Farm alone, one single insurance company out of dozens, paid out more than 5.6 billion dollars in hail-related claims across the United States. water level trough slamming into a loaded unstable warm sector looks strikingly similar to what multiple independent models are now showing for the second half of this forecast period.

[00:01:24]I'm not predicting that exact outcome.

[00:01:26]I'm telling you the atmosphere is building the same machinery and that demands your full attention. So, let's get into exactly what is happening, where the worst of this is going to hit, when the most dangerous windows will open, and what you need to do before any of it arrives.

[00:01:39]To understand the storm train completely, you have to understand what is driving it. And the driver of everything unfolding right now is the jet stream, the high-altitude river of fast-moving air that circles the northern hemisphere and acts as the primary engine of weather across the continental United States. When the jet stream is strong and relatively Right now, a significant and persistent dip in the jet stream is anchored directly over the Rocky Mountains. This is not a small passing wiggle in the atmospheric flow.

[00:02:05]This is a deep trough, a major downward bulge that has been sitting in roughly the same position for days and is expected to continue sitting there.

[00:02:12]And it is doing two things simultaneously that are building the fuel for the storm train.

[00:02:17]First, it is pulling a massive surge of Pacific moisture eastward into the interior of the country.

[00:02:23]Second, it is allowing the Gulf of two moisture sources, Pacific on one side, Gulf on the other, underneath a jet stream that is simultaneously providing the vertical wind shear needed to organize thunderstorms into rotating supercells and long-lived squall lines, you get a setup that experienced meteorologists recognize immediately as dangerous. The fuel is fully loaded. The engine is already running. And storm after storm after storm is going to ignite in that environment over the next week and beyond. What makes this particular jet stream configuration especially alarming is not just its current position. It is how long it has been entrenched and how long it is projected to stay.

[00:02:57]A stalled anchored trough over the Rockies is not a two-day weather feature. It is a persistent atmospheric regime, the kind that dominated the pattern during the record-breaking May stretches of 2024 and 2025.

[00:03:10]The NWS Chicago forecast office has already confirmed that the lower Great Lakes region alone experienced severe weather on 15 and through that same period.

[00:03:19]This jet stream has been primed for months. What is happening right now is not the beginning of the season's severe weather activity. It is the crescendo.

[00:03:27]Produce one clean, well-organized, easy to forecast outbreak. Instead, we are entering what meteorologists call a mesoscale severe weather regime. Instead of one big, obvious threat that captures national attention three days in advance and gives people adequate time to prepare, what you're going to see is multiple smaller, faster developing, harder to predict threats popping up seemingly out of nowhere every single day. One afternoon, you're in the backyard watching a beautiful Eiffel Blue sky. 15 minutes later, a severe thunderstorm is on your doorstep producing 70 mph wind gusts and hail the size of golf balls. That is what a mesoscale severe weather day looks like from the ground. And that is exactly what you're going to be living with for the next 7 to 10 days across a massive portion of this country. The keyword for this entire forecast period is mesoscale. Unpredictable, spontaneous, and fully capable of being catastrophic on any given afternoon or evening with very little advance notice. The storm train is already rolling today and the first significant stops on this journey are hitting the Southern Plains, the Central Plains, and the Tennessee Valley simultaneously. The Storm Prediction Center has a slight risk of severe weather in place right now for Texas and Oklahoma. That is a level two risk on their five-tier scale, meaning scattered severe storms are not just possible, but expected. There are also two separate marginal risks, but the area that is demanding the most respect from me today is the Tennessee Valley and Dixie Alley.

[00:04:49]Because while the other regions are primarily dealing with a wind and hail threat, the Tennessee Valley is carrying an elevated tornado risk that covers approximately 10 million people.

[00:04:58]Let me make sure that registers.

[00:05:00]Today, right now, as you're watching this, roughly 10 million Americans are living inside an elevated organized rotating supercell thunderstorms capable of significant damaging tornadoes.

[00:05:11]Storms are expected to fire during the mid-afternoon and stay potent through the early evening with the peak window running from roughly 2:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. local time. Back near Birmingham, a large cluster of thunderstorms will primarily produce damaging winds and hail with a lower, but non-zero tornado risk. Up in Kentucky, storm scenarios are being modeled that could generate supercellular structures capable of brief isolated tornadoes. Down in the Southern Plains, Texas, Oklahoma, the Amarillo quarter, today's setup is primarily a wind and hail threat.

[00:05:42]But near Wichita Falls and just east of Lubbock, we're watching closely for the possibility of baseball-sized hail. A baseball is 2.75 in in diameter. When hailstones reach that size, they are not just property damaging, they are dangerous to any person caught outside without cover.

[00:05:58]Insurance industry data shows clearly that the difference between 1.75 in hail and 2.75 in hail is literally the difference between a fixable windshield and a car declared a total loss.

[00:06:08]Baseball-sized hail can crack structural automotive glass on trucks and SUVs, shred solar panel arrays, collapse lightweight roofing systems, and cause serious injury with no warning whatsoever.

[00:06:20]If you live in that corridor today, your vehicles need to be under substantial cover before storms fire this afternoon.

[00:06:25]Do not be caught off guard if you live near Oklahoma City or Dallas tonight, either. Storms developing in the Southern Plains this afternoon are forecast to continue intensifying well into the overnight hours, potentially waking people up with thunder, lightning, and isolated damaging winds during the early morning hours on Saturday.

[00:06:41]An overnight severe weather threat is one that people chronically underestimate because they are asleep and their guard is completely down.

[00:06:48]This is precisely why keeping your phone charged and your weather alerts fully enabled every single night this week is not optional. It is essential. When Saturday arrives, the storm train does not slow down. It simply shifts the track slightly.

[00:07:01]The morning hours across the Dallas, Shreveport, and Texarkana corridor could open with a marginal severe threat from leftover overnight storm activity pushing through. A weak, broken line of thunderstorms is entirely possible, and damaging wind gusts along that line could start your Saturday with a rude and sudden awakening if you are not already tracking the forecast.

[00:07:20]As Saturday afternoon unfolds, the geographic scope of what is coming is striking.

[00:07:24]There will be thunderstorm activity from Texas all the way through Missouri, Arkansas, and into the Carolinas and Georgia. The entire southern half of the eastern United States will be active simultaneously. The Southeast, the Southern Plains, the Central Plains, all producing storms. The important caveat for Saturday is that the overall severe weather risk will be what I would describe as spontaneous and low-end.

[00:07:46]We are not looking at a clean, well-organized, textbook outbreak for Saturday.

[00:07:50]The primary hazards will be damaging wind gusts, the most common and consistently under-appreciated severe weather killer across this country, along with isolated large hail and a very low but real tornado risk from spin-ups embedded in squall lines.

[00:08:04]Those embedded squall line tornadoes deserve specific attention. They happen fast. They may not appear dramatic on radar to an untrained eye. They can touch down with only a minute or two of actual warning time. And by the time that warning reaches your phone, the storm producing that tornado is already very close to your location. There's something critically important to understand about spin-up tornadoes specifically.

[00:08:24]They are responsible for a disproportionately high share of tornado fatalities in the Southeast compared to the classic long-track supercell tornadoes of the plains.

[00:08:33]The reason is straightforward. They happen quickly. They are difficult to detect in complex radar environments.

[00:08:38]The dense tree cover across the Southeast eliminates the long-range visual warning that people on the open plains naturally receive.

[00:08:45]If you live anywhere from Texas through the Carolinas this Saturday, keeping your phone alerts active and your shelter plan mentally ready is the minimum reasonable precaution.

[00:08:54]Period.

[00:08:55]Sunday continues the storm train with another round of severe weather and I want to call special attention to something about Sunday's threat. It looks very broad, very broad. Right now we have a marginal threat in place for Nebraska and Iowa on Sunday, but I want to be completely direct. That outlook will almost certainly expand.

[00:09:12]The pattern over just this past week has been instructive on this exact point.

[00:09:16]Saturday's risk, for example, initially showed zero outlined areas on the day three Storm Prediction Center outlook.

[00:09:22]Zero. Then it grew to three separate risk areas as the atmosphere evolved and the models caught up with what the environment was doing.

[00:09:29]Dramatic upward revision in a mesoscale dominant pattern like this is not a modeling failure. It is entirely normal, entirely expected, and you should build it into your assumptions for every day of this forecast period.

[00:09:41]Across the Great Plains and the Southeast on Sunday, the primary threats remain consistent with everything else we have been talking about. Damaging wind gusts, isolated large hail, and a persistent low tornado risk. Over in Indiana, a squall line is possible that could impact outdoor activities and produce gusty, potentially severe winds.

[00:09:59]The Tennessee Valley and Dixie Alley will remain in the game on Sunday with scattered storms continuing to fire and maintain the tornado threat that has been present throughout the entire period.

[00:10:09]One thing worth acknowledging as we move through this weekend is that the Southeast genuinely needs the rainfall this active pattern will deliver.

[00:10:16]Significant drought conditions have been ongoing across parts of Georgia, the Carolinas, and the Deep South for weeks.

[00:10:22]The rainfall totals expected over the next 7 to 10 days, with widespread accumulations of 2 to 5 inches forecast across drought-stricken areas, are welcome news for communities that have been watching their reservoir levels drop and their topsoil crack.

[00:10:35]Beneficial rainfall and life-threatening severe weather can and do come from the same storm system.

[00:10:41]That complicated reality is something forecasters navigate every single spring across this part of the country. As we move into Monday and early next week, a high-pressure ridge will attempt to build over the Great Plains, providing a temporary brief suppression of severe weather activity across the Midwest and Ohio Valley. I want to be very clear about the word temporary because even the quieter days embedded in this pattern are not clean, zero-risk days.

[00:11:04]The mesoscale regime we are locked into does not take days off. What it gives you on its quieter days is a lower confidence, more localized threat that can materialize rapidly without the fanfare of a pre-event national broadcast.

[00:11:17]And in some ways, that is actually more dangerous than a well-publicized, organized outbreak. When a major outbreak is forecast days in advance, people prepare. They charge devices, review shelter plans, move vehicles under cover.

[00:11:29]A random Tuesday afternoon mesoscale tornado that develops without significant advanced coverage is exactly the kind of event that catches communities completely off guard. Keep your guard up through Monday and into Tuesday. Instability will be rebuilding rapidly across the southern plains and southeast during that period, fueling additional rounds of pop-up severe storms with damaging winds, hail, and brief tornadoes all on the table on any given afternoon.

[00:11:53]Now, let's talk about the scenario that has the entire meteorological community watching very carefully. What happens around Wednesday and Thursday of next week? Multiple models are showing a large-scale organized low-pressure system developing along the west coast sometime around that window. This is the wild card that could either elevate this storm train to an entirely different and far more dangerous level or keep the pattern in the same mesoscale unpredictable regime we have been dealing with all week.

[00:12:18]The key question is simply this.

[00:12:20]Does that west coast low-pressure system stay put over Nevada and Utah, wandering aimlessly across the Intermountain West, or does it eject eastward over the Rocky Mountains into the Great Plains? If it stays in the west, the mesoscale pattern continues. Unpredictable severe weather every day across the Great Plains and southeast, but without a highly organized, well-defined major outbreak threat. Still dangerous, still active, just difficult to forecast precisely.

[00:12:44]But, if that low ejects over the Rockies, and a growing number of independent model systems are hinting strongly in that direction, everything changes.

[00:12:52]Because when a powerful upper-level low ejects out of the Rockies and into the plains, it acts like a match thrown into a room that has been filling with gas for days. The instability building through Monday and Tuesday, the Gulf moisture surging northward continuously, the wind shear profile loaded and ready, all of it would suddenly have a powerful, well-defined trigger pulling it into a much more organized, much more widespread, and much more catastrophic severe weather event.

[00:13:18]We are talking organized supercell thunderstorms capable of long-track EF2 and EF3 tornadoes, widespread damaging wind events potentially qualifying as a full-scale derecho across hundreds of miles and very large hail targeting major metropolitan areas from the central plains through the Midwest simultaneously. For context on exactly how dangerous an ejecting Rocky system can be, the May 2025 outbreak that tracked across the Midwest and Ohio Valley produced an EF4 tornado near Marion, Illinois with winds measured at 190 mph, caused $5.9 billion in damage across multiple days, generated hail as large as 4.5 in near Leitchfield, Kentucky, and knocked out power to over 600,000 households. That event grew directly from the same type of negatively tilted Rockies ejecting upper-level setup that multiple models are now projecting for late next week.

[00:14:07]That parallel is direct and it is not subtle. I'm not telling you that scenario is guaranteed, it is not.

[00:14:12]7-plus days out, the atmosphere is a chaotic system and small errors now translate into large outcome differences later. But, the signal is consistent enough across enough independent modeling systems that this window demands serious daily monitoring.

[00:14:26]If you live in the central plains, the northern plains, or anywhere in the Midwest, track the forecasts every single day between now and the end of next week. While we are talking about the non-tornado threats in this pattern, I want to spend real time on the derecho risk because derechos get dramatically less media attention than tornadoes despite being responsible for catastrophic damage across enormous geographic areas. A derecho is a fast-moving long-lived complex of thunderstorms that produces straight-line wind damage along a path of at least 250 mi with multiple wind gusts exceeding 58 mph and some gusts reaching 75 to 100 mph or beyond. Unlike a tornado, which strikes a relatively narrow path and lifts, a derecho can barrel across five or six states in a single overnight period, flattening trees, destroying roofs, snapping utility poles, and leaving hundreds of thousands of homes without power across an enormous area. All while most people are asleep and have no idea it is coming. The June 2012 North American Derecho, one of the most destructive ever recorded, covered approximately 700 miles in about 12 hours, caused nearly $3 billion in damage, killed 22 people, and knocked out power to more than 4 million customers across multiple states. Derechos are equally likely to occur at night as during the day, which means you can go to sleep under completely clear skies and wake up to a storm system already in your county producing 80 mph winds with no warning you would naturally encounter if your phone is silenced.

[00:15:52]The 2024 Houston Derecho swept through the metro area with near hurricane force wind gusts, causing widespread catastrophic damage, and it developed and intensified faster than the vast majority of residents anticipated.

[00:16:04]That rapid development speed is the signature characteristic of the mesoscale pattern we are now locked into.

[00:16:10]Any night this week, a mesoscale convective system could organize across the central plains and sweep eastward through the overnight hours before most people are aware it exists.

[00:16:18]This is precisely why a NOAA weather radio beside your bed, a device that sounds an audible alarm when a warning is issued for your county regardless of your phone settings, is not an outdated piece of equipment.

[00:16:30]In a week like this one, it is potentially life-saving technology.

[00:16:33]While the central and eastern United States braces for relentless severe storms, flooding rain, and the derecho and tornado threats we just walked through, the desert southwest is locked into a completely opposite and equally dangerous pattern. Little to no rainfall is expected across Arizona, New Mexico, and large portions of Southern California through this entire period.

[00:16:53]While the rest of the country gets soaked, elevated fire weather conditions will persist and potentially intensify across Western California, where gusty dry winds are forecast to combine with low humidity and desiccated vegetation to create exactly the environment that allows wildfires to ignite and spread with frightening speed.

[00:17:11]This is the cruel irony of an active jet stream pattern like this one. It delivers catastrophic flooding to one region while simultaneously withholding all moisture from another, producing tornado risk on one side of the country while generating fire risk on the other.

[00:17:24]East of the trough, warm, wet, violent.

[00:17:27]West of the trough, dry, hot, dangerous.

[00:17:31]Two opposite extremes, one atmospheric route, cause.

[00:17:35]If you live in wildfire prone areas of the desert Southwest or Western California, the coming week requires extreme vigilance. Keep your evacuation plan current, know your local fire risk ratings, and do not dismiss air quality alerts. Let me be blunt with you about preparation because I have covered enough severe weather events in this region to know exactly what the post-event conversations sound like.

[00:17:55]Every single time a major severe weather outbreak moves through this country, emergency managers and meteorologists face the same heartbreaking question.

[00:18:04]Why did people not act when they had time?

[00:18:06]Not because the warnings were not issued, not because the forecasts were not made, because people assumed the storm would miss them. They assumed they had more time. They assumed it would not be as bad as the forecast said. In a mesoscale severe weather pattern where storms can develop rapidly with limited advance notice, your reaction window is smaller than it is during a well-publicized organized outbreak. That means preparation cannot wait for a specific storm to appear on radar. It has to happen now before any individual system is even on the horizon.

[00:18:35]Enable wireless emergency alerts on your phone at the highest possible notification level and do it tonight before you go to sleep. Not after you hear the first rumble of thunder.

[00:18:44]Tonight.

[00:18:46]A phone silenced or set to low priority alerts during a nocturnal tornado event could be the difference between 5 minutes of warning and no warning at all.

[00:18:54]Go into your settings, find emergency alerts, and confirm every category is switched on at full volume. That takes 45 seconds. Do it before this video ends. Know your shelter location in your home before Saturday arrives. The safest place during a tornado warning is the lowest floor, the most interior room, completely away from all windows and exterior walls. A bathroom, a hallway, a closet.

[00:19:16]If you live in a mobile home, identify a nearby substantial structure you can physically reach in under 2 minutes because no mobile home, regardless of age, size, or tie-down system, provides meaningful tornado protection. Protect your vehicles.

[00:19:30]In the areas forecast to see baseball-sized hail over the next week, and there will be multiple such areas, a car in an open driveway can sustain damage totaling 5,000 to 30,000 dollars from a single storm.

[00:19:42]Insurance industry data shows that 20% of vehicles hit by large hail are declared total losses. Get anything with an engine under a roof. Keep gas in your car.

[00:19:51]In widespread severe weather events, power outages knock gas stations offline faster than most people anticipate. And a vehicle with less than a quarter tank during a multi-day storm sequence is a liability you do not need. Charge everything every night. Your phone, your backup battery pack, your weather radio.

[00:20:07]In a 7-to-10-day active pattern of this nature, there will almost certainly be at least one significant regional power outage event. Do not be caught with a dead device when the next round fires up at 2:00 a.m. People take the individual daily threats We are sitting in a pattern where the jet stream is locked into a configuration that continuously regenerates storm fuel across the central United States.

[00:20:28]The trough over the Rockies keeps pulling Pacific moisture. The Gulf keeps feeding warm, humid, unstable air northward. The temperature contrast between the above-normal heat building in the south and the still below-average cold being held north creates a perpetual energy gradient that thunderstorms thrive on and sustain themselves within.

[00:20:47]This is a multi-week atmospheric regime.

[00:20:49]And 2026 was already historically active before it locked in.

[00:20:52]Over 300 severe weather reports in a single day. During the mid-May outbreak, confirmed tornadoes in Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma through mid-May.

[00:21:00]An EF2 tracking near Enid. An EF1 touching down directly over downtown Oklahoma City.

[00:21:06]And a stovepipe tornado that blasted a Vance Air Force Base on April 23rd with enough violence to force it closed for days as crews worked to restore power and water. 300 reports in one day.

[00:21:17]And that was before this storm train had even reached its full potential.

[00:21:21]The instability is still building. The jet stream remains in a favorable orientation.

[00:21:26]And the wildcard low pressure system near the West Coast could, if it ejects over the Rockies, then become the trigger for the most significant severe weather episode of the 2020 six season by a wide margin.

[00:21:37]Before I close, I want to address something that goes beyond the immediate weather threat because what this pattern represents is part of a much larger and deeply alarming trend affecting millions of American households in ways many people have not yet fully connected. The severe convective storm insurance crisis in the United States is accelerating at a pace that should genuinely alarm anyone who owns a home or vehicle in the central or southern plains.

[00:22:00]The insurance industry reported more than $60 billion in losses from severe convective storms, thunderstorms producing hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes in 2024 alone.

[00:22:11]In 2022, that same figure was $31 billion. Dollars.

[00:22:16]In just two years, the annual damage total nearly doubled. And that trajectory is not flattening. It is accelerating.

[00:22:22]State Farm paid out more than $5.6 billion in hail claims in 2025. Texas alone accounted for $1.4 billion of that.

[00:22:30]Missouri, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Oklahoma rounded out the top five states, which are, not coincidentally, exactly the states sitting squarely in the bull's-eye of the storm train firing up right now. What does this mean for you practically? It means that after a major hail event in your area, getting a claim processed, finding a contractor, and completing repairs is going to take significantly longer and cost significantly more than it would have five years ago.

[00:22:54]The repair infrastructure in high-frequency hail zones is perpetually backlogged. After a baseball hail event in a metropolitan area, some homeowners wait 6 months or longer for roofing repairs to begin. That is 6 months with a compromised roof exposed to every subsequent rain event, every wind gust, and the slow developing mold damage that follows water intrusion.

[00:23:15]And here is the piece that most homeowners have not yet absorbed.

[00:23:18]Insurance companies are not passively absorbing these losses.

[00:23:22]They are raising premiums aggressively, restricting coverage in high-risk areas, and in many cases exiting markets entirely.

[00:23:28]Multiple major insurers have already scaled back their residential footprints specifically in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri because of the escalating frequency and severity of severe convective storm events.

[00:23:40]If you received a premium increase notice in the last 12 months and wondered why your rate jumped, this pattern is why. If you received a non-renewal notice and felt blindsided by it, this is the atmospheric reality behind that business decision.

[00:23:53]Protecting your property before the storms arrive is no longer just a safety consideration.

[00:23:58]In the current insurance environment across the Central Plains, it is a financial survival strategy. The atmosphere is not slowing down. The storms are not becoming gentler. And the window to prepare before this storm train arrives at your doorstep is measured in hours for some people and days for others, but it is not infinite and it is closing.

[00:24:16]The single greatest advancement in severe weather survivability over the past three decades has not been a better radar or a faster computer model. It has been lead time. The ability to warn people before the worst arrives. Right now, today, you have that lead time. The models are telling you. The forecasters are telling you. I am telling you. The gap between right now and when this storm train reaches your location is the most valuable resource you have this week. Use it. Share this video with everyone you know who lives from Texas to the Great Lakes. Subscribe and hit that bell icon. I will be going live multiple times through this week as significant events unfold and you do not want to miss a real-time radar update when it matters most. Get your phone alerts on. Know your shelter. Cover your vehicles. Charge everything tonight. The storm train has left the station. It is moving fast. It is carrying a heavy load and it is not stopping anytime soon.

[00:25:03]The question is not whether it is coming. The question is whether you will be ready when it arrives. Stay weather aware. Keep those alerts on. Watch the sky and we will have another update for you very soon.