The Weather Is About To Change A LOT...

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]The weather is about to change a lot and we are about to enter one of the most unpredictable severe weather patterns that we've had in a long time. Beginning with the next few days, a growing risk of severe weather will impact millions of people with damaging winds, giant hail, and a couple of tornadoes possible. After this, a highly variable jetream will make forecasting severe weather difficult, which could catch a lot of people offguard on any given day with the locations and threats changing dramatically from one day to the next.

[00:00:31]We have quite the crazy weather pattern to talk about. So, let's get right into the forecast. And with this big weather pattern change coming, we need to talk about the jetream, as this is what controls our weather patterns across the United States. And the key thing for right now is that our jetream has a large dip over in the Rockies. This is allowing for a large storm system in the upper levels to still be present. And this is actually helping to pull a lot of moisture right now out of the Pacific Ocean. And this is going to lead to even more severe weather over the next few days and will lead to widespread showers and thunderstorms for much of the country. So, it's actually going to be pretty busy over the next few days.

[00:01:07]However, this jetream pattern that we're in is not working with very favorable ingredients like instability and wind shear. And so, generally speaking, an outbreak of severe weather does not look likely as of right now between today all the way through Friday as we are just not going to have the ingredients there.

[00:01:23]But on Friday, we will still have a southwesterly flow all across the Ohio Valley, Mississippi River Valley, and then back into the southern plains. And this should at least lead to some level of severity of storms. And there could be some damaging winds and hail with a few storms out there and maybe even a low tornado risk. And we'll talk more about that here in a second. And then once we go into Saturday and Sunday, our jetream is going to become a lot weaker and a lot more disorganized. And this is going to promote a I would say quieter weather pattern to start next week.

[00:01:51]Right now on Monday, it looks likely that a high pressure system will attempt to build here across the Great Plains.

[00:01:57]This should kind of keep things a little bit quieter around Monday of next week.

[00:02:00]But something that'll be happening during this entire time period, literally from today all the way through Monday, is that there will be some messoscale severe weather days. That's basically where we have unpredictable severe weather. It's predictable, but generally speaking, four to 5 days out.

[00:02:14]We don't know where it's going to happen and it could actually be pretty significant. And so there could be some severe weather around this part of the week. We just don't see anything major or organized that would lead me to believe that we are going to see a major outbreak that covers 12 or 15 states like what we've seen over the last few days. My big concern is the very end of May. Right now, a lot of models are hinting at a pretty sizable storm system sometime around the tail end of next week, which granted is pretty far out.

[00:02:40]We got about 8 to nine days until this even happens. But a lot of models are showing a very intense storm system making its way towards the Rockies. And this could be the storm system that leads to a more widespread threat of severe weather. But generally speaking, for the next 7 days, we are going to have severe weather. But it's going to be hard to predict. But over the next few minutes, I'm going to talk about exactly where I think the best chances will be. And we will talk about the long-term of severe weather in a moment.

[00:03:04]But I want to start by talking about the severe weather for the next 3 days. And beginning with today, we do have a marginal threat of severe weather from southern New England back into Kentucky and a slight risk of severe weather in far western Texas. The main concern for today will be an isolated damaging wind threat for those that live over there in the Mid-Atlantic. Some large to even perhaps very large hail will be possible later this afternoon, mainly to the south of Levik. Could actually have some pretty cool storm structure down there.

[00:03:29]I don't plan on being live, but there will likely be some stormchasers out there. So, I definitely recommend checking those out. Tornado risk right now does look very low. And then as we head into Thursday, the risk of severe weather is puny. It's going to be just southeast of Denver where we have a little marginal threat of severe weather, but there is a low chance of an isolated tornado in this environment.

[00:03:48]Otherwise, we're just talking about an isolated large hail and damaging wind threat. And then Friday, our threat of severe weather will shift just a smidge to the east. We have a slight risk of severe weather in place for Kansas, Texas, and Oklahoma. and a marginal threat which does include Abalene and Oklahoma City where there will be mainly a risk here of damaging winds and some large hail and maybe an isolated tornado. Now, let's talk more about the timing of severe weather for the next 3 days. Beginning with today, we are expecting a lot of thunderstorms to pop up, mostly popcorn storms if you're down here in the Dixie Alley. But over here in the Mid-Atlantic, there will be some scattered severe storms, mainly capable of producing a damaging wind threat and some isolated large hail. This what it's going to look like right around 5:00 Eastern or so. And these storms will be moving at about 30 to 40 miles per hour off to the east. But don't be caught off guard by a couple of these storms that'll actually be left moving supercells and those could actually pose a little bit of a corkcrew into your forecast if you live over in West Virginia or Kentucky. And then by this evening, most of those storms will weaken. It should be a pretty stormy afternoon though around here. But we are looking at about a 70% storm coverage all across the Mid-Atlantic for today.

[00:04:51]And then back over here in Texas and also the southern plains, we are watching for some storms to fire right around 2 to 4:00, mainly south of Odessa, producing mainly a risk of very large hail and damaging winds. I would not rule out an isolated tornado threat, but I do think the risk of that is pretty low. And then on Thursday, we're going to kind of repeat ourselves all across the country where there will once again be scattered showers and thunderstorms all across the Ohio Valley and back into the southeast, mainly with a risk of some gusty winds and small hail and some lightning. Nothing really surprising though here. This is your typical summertime type activity when it comes to severe weather. And then down in the southern plains, it'll be a little bit more messy down here. Dallas Fort Worth back through Abalene. We could have some pop-up thunderstorms during the afternoon. Some isolated damaging winds and hail may be possible.

[00:05:36]I would not be surprised if we did get a marginal threat of severe weather near Abalene. But our more concentrated risk of severe storms will actually be in southeastern Colorado. Fairly rural areas will deal with the risk of damaging winds and large hail. If those storms don't upscale that fast, there could be a tornado with that environment as there is going to be a little bit more wind shear locally. But I do think the risk will overall be pretty low in this area. And then as we go into the evening and overnight hours, that area of thunderstorms will kind of die down as it gets closer to Dodge City, Kansas.

[00:06:05]And then Friday is going to be once again another pretty stormy day here across the southeast. There will be more thunderstorms here capable of producing gusty winds, cloud to ground lightning, and even some small hail. I definitely would not rule out an isolated severe weather risk over here in the Ohio Valley. I just think the risk is generally low. So, I'm talking Ohio Valley, Tennessee Valley, back into the Dixie Alley. And then as we go into the evening hours, we're also going to be watching for some supercells to try to go up over here in the Texas panhandle.

[00:06:29]These will be pretty discreet. And I definitely would not rule out at least a low tornado risk in this area, but I do think it's going to be near zero just due to the lack of moisture. And then back over in Kansas and Nebraska, there could be some clusters of thunderstorms that might also promote a marginal threat of severe weather for damaging wind gusts. So don't be caught off guard if you have any sort of outdoor activities on Friday there in Kansas or Nebraska. And once we head into Saturday morning, things are finally starting to quiet down a little bit, but even Saturday is going to be pretty storming across the country. The good news is that nothing is really going to look too organized for most of you, which means we're not looking at a major tornado outbreak, at least for the foreseeable future. And then once we head into Saturday and Sunday, this storm system that's going to bring some scattered to numerous storms across the southeast and that low threat of severe weather on Friday to areas like Texas and Oklahoma will make its way into the Ohio Valley.

[00:07:18]And this storm will likely bring even more thunderstorm activity from Texas onto the east coast on Saturday with a lot of moisture and some instability, but again lacking key ingredients like wind shear. So we're not really looking at much of a tornado risk at all on Saturday. It's just going to be those scattered ordinary thunderstorms. Sunday kind of looks the same and mainly about across the Southeast, which guys, the Southeast desperately needs rain. So, this is definitely some good news. And then by Monday of next week, things at least get somewhat quieter across the Great Plains and the Midwest. I do think by Tuesday and Wednesday of next week though, we will start to see that troughing pattern kick in over here. And so, we will see an upper level low pressure system develop. How significant our severe weather is going to be by the middle and end of next week is very questionable, but I would at least anticipate some level of severe weather kicking off on Thursday and then going into Friday and Saturday, especially across the central and northern plains.

[00:08:07]And that could make its way into the Midwest as well. And then going into June, we have absolutely no clue what's going to happen. We got to get through the next 10 days first and then we'll see what happens then. And some really good news I have for everybody is that there is a lot of rain coming to those that desperately need it. This is the amount of rain that is currently estimated to occur between now all the way through Thursday of next week. So, over the next 8 days or so. And there's plenty of rain coming to those that desperately need it in Florida, generally just in the southeast. And even across the southern plains, Houston's forecasted to get somewhere around 4 to 7 in. Same thing with New Orleans. And back over in Atlanta and Charleston, South Carolina, we're at least looking at around a half an inch to a couple inches of rain. Nonetheless, we will take it. Especially down there in the southeast where there is still a drought that is pretty significant ongoing. Unfortunately, if you live along the West Coast, it is going to remain dry and the fire weather could remain elevated over there in Western California, especially if the winds are intense. And guys, we are nearing the end of May and we have low temperatures across the upper Midwest in the 30s and 40s this morning. And this is one of the reasons why we are really not seeing much severe weather right now. The temperatures are super low here across much of the Midwest and the Ohio Valley.

[00:09:14]Even tomorrow morning, we're looking at 40s and 50s. Enjoy the weather while it's here, guys. It's going to be really nice up there in the far northern tier of the country. I'm over here in Florida baking with temperatures in the 80s and 90s right now. As we go into Friday and Saturday, temperatures will gradually start to increase again. But even if you live over Minneapolis, high temperature right now for Saturday will only be in the low to mid60s. So again, enjoy the nice weather while it's here. Things will really start to warm up again as we head into next week. And a lot of the time when we get these surges of warm air out of the Gulf, it does lead to higherend severe weather events returning. If we do get a low pressure system ejecting over the Rockies and so there is some concern there, especially since Minneapolis and even Fargo will be right back up into the 80s by the middle of next week. So definitely something we'll be keeping an eye on. And also something interesting I saw regarding the weather right now. These are the current temperature anomalies across the country. We are running about 15 to 20° below average for most of the Great Plains this morning. Even this afternoon near LC, Kansas City, and St. Louis will be as low as 20 to 25° below normal.

[00:10:13]Nearly in the entire country tomorrow will be below normal as well, unless you're along the West Coast. And again, these numbers that you see here are basically the difference from average.

[00:10:21]So like -14, that's 14° below average.

[00:10:23]And again, across the board, it is definitely below normal, but by next week, things will once again change for most of the Great Plains in the East Coast. Along the West Coast though, there will be a little bit of a cool down, especially over near Seattle and Portland. And as always, thank you all so much for watching today's forecast.

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