Severe weather reloads over Midwest, Plains with storms set to blast more than 65M from Texas to Pennsylvania

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Parts of the Midwest are once again in the bull's-eye of a line of severe thunderstorms that are expected to produce large hail and damaging wind gusts beginning Friday afternoon from Iowa to Texas — the overall threat covers more than 65 million people over 1,500 miles from the Big Bend of Texas to western Pennsylvania.  

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Portions of southern Iowa and northern Missouri are under a Level 3 out of 5 risk of severe thunderstorms, according to NOAA's Storm Prediction Center. This area faces the greatest risk of seeing supercell thunderstorms capable of producing tornadoes — just south of Thursday's most intense storms.

WHAT IS A SUPERCELL THUNDERSTORM?

There will be a narrow window from mid-to late Friday afternoon when these supercells are most likely to form.

Warm air high in the atmosphere on Thursday prevented many tornado-generating storms from forming. However, egg-sized hail was reported across parts of eastern Iowa and western Illinois by the National Weather Service (NWS), as well as widespread reports of damaging wind gusts that reached 65 mph.

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A rope tornado was spotted touching down in West Liberty, Iowa Thursday afternoon and the roof was ripped off part of a small farm in nearby West Branch. No injuries have been reported.

Storms to blast Central and Southern Plains Friday

A second severe weather system will move out of the Rockies and into the Plains by Friday afternoon.

HOW TO WATCH FOX WEATHER

Thunderstorms are expected to fire ahead of and along the associated cold front from the Ohio Valley to Texas in the afternoon and evening. All hazards are possible, including damaging winds, large hail and tornadoes.

According to the FOX Forecast Center, storms could fire along a dryline — the boundary between dry air from the west and warm, moist air from the Gulf — that's expected to form Friday across western Oklahoma into West Texas.

Storms are forecast to organize into a line from western Iowa to West Texas Friday evening and charge eastward overnight, with the greatest threat being damaging wind gusts in Kansas and Oklahoma.

Flash flood threat extends into holiday weekend for Southern Plains, Midwest

In addition to the severe weather hazards, the FOX Forecast Center noted that the significant moisture in the atmosphere and the repeated number of storms moving across the same region could lead to flash flooding from northern Texas into southwestern Missouri, where a Level 2 out of 4 flash flood risk is in place through Saturday morning.

A widespread 2-3 inches of rain is possible from Dallas to Kansas City through Saturday.

Flash flooding closed multiple roads in Johnson County, Missouri, just east of Kansas City, on Thursday.

This active severe weather pattern comes right on cue, as April is historically when spring severe weather season begins to intensify across the middle of the country.