This Storm Just Turned Extremely Concerning! Get Ready

Added: 2026-05-19

[00:00:00]The Storm Prediction Center has not yet issued outlooks beyond day three, but I can tell you that the ingredients being discussed in the extended range guidance are the same ingredients that produce significant severe weather outbreaks. Be watching SPC's day four and five outlooks as they are issued Wednesday morning. If you live anywhere from central Kansas through central Missouri into western Tennessee, this is the week to make sure your warning receipt method is reliable and your shelter plan is current, not after the watch is posted.

[00:00:25]Now, behind the severe weather threat on the warm side of the system, the cold side tells a completely different story for the upper Midwest and Great Lakes.

[00:00:33]As the plains low deepens, it will pull cold air southward from Canada through the Dakotas, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan.

[00:00:41]The precipitation type question in this zone, the zone roughly from Sioux Falls to Minneapolis to Green Bay, is one of the more consequential forecast questions of the week. If the low tracks slightly south of current guidance, the cold air arrives faster and the precipitation falls as snow, potentially significant snow, across the Twin Cities and into northern Wisconsin. If the low tracks slightly north, the precipitation falls as ice and rain before transitioning to snow. Ice is the scenario that historically causes the most widespread damage, the most power outages, and the most disruption to transportation networks.

[00:01:14]This is the scenario meteorologists are watching most carefully in the day four to five window. Either way, by Saturday morning temperatures across the northern plains and upper Midwest will be running 15 to 25 degrees below where they were this time last week.

[00:01:27]Freeze watches are already a near certainty for the Ohio Valley and interior northeast for next weekend. If you have anything in the ground, any tender plants responding to the recent warm spell, the window to protect them is before Thursday, not the morning of the frost. The southeast and Gulf Coast get their piece of the system last, but they are not minor characters in the story. As the plains low lifts northeast toward the Great Lakes, its trailing cold front will sweep through the Tennessee Valley, the deep south, and into Florida by Friday night into Saturday. Ahead of that front, a warm and unstable air mass will be in place across Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and the Florida Panhandle. The severe weather threat in this corridor on Friday is real, and it is the zone where overnight tornado warnings are most possible, which is historically the most dangerous threat profile in American meteorology. People are asleep. The storm is not. And behind everything, behind the full continental passage of the system, behind the flooding in the Northwest, the snow in the Rockies, the tornadoes in the plains, the ice in the upper Midwest, and the overnight storms in the Southeast, there's a cold pattern reasserting itself across the eastern half of the country next week that will not feel temporary. The ridge that has been keeping temperatures above normal across the South and East is being displaced. What replaces it is a pattern that forecasters are calling persistently below normal for the eastern United States through at least the second week of the month. This is not a one-day event. This is not even a three-day event. This is a seven-day atmospheric reorganization of the entire country's weather pattern.

[00:02:52]And every single region has at least one significant hazard somewhere in that window. Here's what I need you to understand about a storm like this one.

[00:02:59]Tuesday, May 19th, is the next day that needs to be on your radar.

[00:03:03]Areas from Detroit and Lansing, Michigan, through Fort Wayne, St. Louis, Branson, Missouri, Tulsa, Fayetteville, Arkansas, and back to the Oklahoma City metro are all on high alert for severe weather on Tuesday.

[00:03:14]The cold front continues pushing eastward on Tuesday bringing more rounds of severe thunderstorms. While the instability on Tuesday is not quite as extreme as Monday or Sunday, it only takes around 1,000 J/kg to support severe weather, and we will have that and more across the Tuesday risk area.

[00:03:30]This risk could expand and upgrade as we get closer to the day, so definitely keep watching for updates. Now, let us talk temperatures because this system is producing a wild temperature contrast across the country. Ahead of the cold front today, we have summer-like and even record heat building across the middle of the country and into the East.

[00:03:47]Triple-digit heat and record highs are being observed in Amarillo and across West Texas today. Omaha is in the low 90s. Des Moines hitting the mid-80s.

[00:03:57]That extreme heat ahead of the front is actually fueling the severe weather threat by loading the atmosphere with instability.

[00:04:03]By Monday and Tuesday, that record heat shifts eastward with New York City potentially touching the low 90s on Tuesday. The overnight lows are offering little relief with temperatures staying in the 60s and 70s across much of the East through Tuesday morning. Even Detroit could see mid-60° lows early next week. But behind the front, it is a completely different story. Record cold temperatures are dropping across Montana, Wyoming, and the Nebraska Panhandle with mid and upper 20s possible in the higher elevations.

[00:04:31]A frost and freeze risk will return to portions of the Dakotas, Nebraska, Minnesota, and even northern Wisconsin by the middle of next week.

[00:04:39]If you have tender plants in the ground across the northern tier, you may need to cover them up again as we get into the middle of next week. Looking further out toward the end of May, the rainfall totals from this entire system through Sunday, May 24th, are going to be significant across the central United States.

[00:04:54]Multiple inches of rainfall are possible from the Corn Belt all the way down through Texas Hill Country and Coastal Texas, and that could lead to flooding concerns in areas that receive repeated rounds of heavy rain over several days.

[00:05:06]The horseshoe temperature pattern developing for the final days of May shows warmer than normal conditions across the northern tier, while normal to below normal temperatures settle across the outer edges, including the West Coast, Gulf Coast, and Eastern Seaboard due to increased cloud cover and rainfall. And as we flip the calendar into June, the pattern looks hot across the West. The West Coast, the Rockies, and the Plains are all trending hot and steamy heading into June.

[00:05:30]The monsoon flow begins to open up across Arizona, New Mexico, West Texas, and into Colorado and Utah.

[00:05:37]Three. And a northwest flow pattern setting up over Canada into the Great Lakes region raises the threat for derechos later toward Father's Day weekend and beyond.

[00:05:45]A derecho is a fast-moving line of storms associated with widespread damaging straight-line winds, and in extreme cases those winds can exceed 100 mph, which can devastate crops across the Midwest. That is a concern worth watching as we head deeper into the summer months. Make sure you have multiple ways to receive severe weather alerts this weekend and into early next week. Stay safe, stay weather aware, and I will have another full update for you very soon. For the Northeast, the developing cyclone itself when cyclogenesis occurs over the northern plains and upper Midwest in this pattern, the storm system that emerges tracks northeastward, deepening as it goes, and arrives over the Great Lakes and Northeast by Thursday night into Friday. The classic signature of this track is heavy rainfall along the coastal Northeast from New York City through southern New England. Strong northeast winds developing along the coast. Potential coastal flooding in low-lying areas from Long Island through Cape Cod.

[00:06:37]And the possibility of late-season snow in the interior highlands. The Adirondacks, the Catskills, and the Green and White Mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire, where snow remains climatologically possible into mid-May.

[00:06:49]Boston, Providence, Hartford, and Albany are all in the zone where this developing storm could deliver a significant late-week rain and wind event. If you are in the Northeast, and you have outdoor plans this Friday or this weekend, watch the forecast progression closely Wednesday and Thursday as the guidance sharpens around the merger track and intensity. For the Great Lakes and Midwest, the trailing cold front from the merged system produces additional rounds of showers and thunderstorms as it sweeps through the region Thursday and Friday. The severe weather potential behind the merger front is lower than the Wednesday plains event, but not zero.

[00:07:21]Organized wind and hail-producing storms are possible along the frontal passage from Michigan through Ohio and into Pennsylvania Thursday night. Let me give you the honest big picture. What is happening this week is not an isolated meteorological event. It is the continuation of a large-scale atmospheric pattern that has been running since the first week of March, driven by the same Canadian blocking feature that refuses to dislodge, the same repeated Gulf moisture return, and the same sequence of Pacific energy ejections that have fueled every major outbreak and flooding event of this spring. The closed upper low over eastern Canada that has been the engine of this entire season is still there, still spinning, still ejecting shortwave energy downstream across the central and eastern United States.

[00:08:03]The machine has not stopped.

[00:08:04]What makes this week different from prior weeks is the magnitude of the Pacific contribution. The closed low tracking into the southwest is a more energetic, more persistent upper level feature than the short [clears throat] waves that preceded it. When it merges with the Canadian lows trough energy late in the week, the combined system carries more potential than either of the contributing features alone. The resulting cyclogenesis over the northeast is the most significant large-scale weather development in the past 10 days and the one that is going to affect the most people in the most diverse ways simultaneously. The 2026 season has already produced a tornado emergency for Brookhaven, Mississippi. It produced the April 22nd through 24th outbreak including the Enid EF4.

[00:08:44]It has delivered the first confirmed damaging tornado in West Virginia in over a decade. It has driven the southeast's worst drought since 1895 while simultaneously flooding the Ohio Valley. And the seasonal peak has not arrived.

[00:08:56]The most historically active week in American tornado records, May 19th through 26th, is less than 2 weeks away.

[00:09:02]The large-scale pattern shows no signs of breaking down before that window opens. Here is exactly where you stand today, Monday, May 9th, 2026.

[00:09:10]Storm one, the Canadian blocking low, has been anchored over central Canada for nearly 2 weeks. It is driving the cold front that currently extends from the Great Lakes into the central plains.

[00:09:19]Monday night brings isolated severe thunderstorms along that front from Kansas through Indiana and Ohio.

[00:09:24]Overnight alerts are required tonight.

[00:09:26]Storm two, the Pacific closed low, is crossing the interior southwest right now. It delivers late season mountain snow to Wyoming and Colorado through Wednesday with 6-plus inch probabilities above 8,000 ft. It ejects into the central plains Tuesday night and drives a significant severe weather event Wednesday night from western Oklahoma through central Kansas and southern Nebraska. Large hail, damaging winds, and a tornado threat are all probable in that corridor Wednesday night.

[00:09:53]The merger arrives Wednesday night into Thursday. Surface cyclogenesis over the northern plains and upper Midwest. Heavy rainfall flooding threat from the Mississippi Valley through the Ohio Valley and Tennessee Valley Thursday.

[00:10:04]Developing coastal storm over the northeast Thursday night into Friday with heavy rain, strong winds, and late season snow possible in the interior highlands.

[00:10:12]Trailing frontal severe weather threat for Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania Thursday night. And behind all of it, the May 19th through 26th window approaching in a pattern that has shown no interest in quieting down. Know your shelter. Set your overnight alerts before Monday night. Watch the Wednesday severe weather setup closely Tuesday evening as the guidance finalizes.

[00:10:30]And for communities in the Mississippi Valley and Ohio Valley, have your flash flood awareness active from Wednesday night through Friday.

[00:10:37]Two large storms are coming together fast and the week ahead will make that very clear.