Severe storms, tornadoes threaten Midwest and Great Plains through Tuesday
Another round of tornadoes, giant hail and flash flooding is lining up from Oklahoma to Wisconsin, with more than 30 million people under alert Monday.
A broad severe-weather corridor is setting up across the Midwest and Great Plains, with storms expected to keep erupting into Tuesday and the highest danger centered from north-central Oklahoma to Minnesota and western Wisconsin. More than 30 million people were expected to be under alert Monday, and the National Weather Service placed east-central Nebraska through southwest Minnesota, including Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Grand Island, Nebraska, in an enhanced-risk zone for large hail, damaging wind and tornadoes.
The most dangerous pocket stretches into central and northeast Kansas and far southeast Nebraska, where forecasters put Topeka under a level 4 out of 5 moderate risk. AccuWeather said Monday and Monday night are likely to be the peak of the outbreak, with severe thunderstorms capable of producing strong, long-track tornadoes, straight-line winds above 74 mph, giant hail and flash flooding. The same storm corridor also includes Wichita, Kansas City, Omaha and Des Moines, leaving a dense run of metro areas in the path of repeated rounds of severe weather.
The pattern is especially punishing because the region has already taken hits. Storms across the central U.S. have brought tornado reports in Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska, baseball-sized hail in Kansas, Missouri, Iowa and Nebraska, estimated 90 mph winds near Concordia, Kansas, and an 82 mph gust at Hill City Airport in northwest Kansas. In central Grundy County, Missouri, including Trenton, a flash flood emergency was issued after six to eight inches of rain fell in a matter of hours.
Weather.com reported a tornado emergency for Hebron, Nebraska, affecting about 1,700 residents, and said two people were rescued from a home in Palmer, Nebraska, after storm damage, with no confirmed deaths reported at that time. The Weather Prediction Center said another round of heavy rainfall is expected to hit from the central Plains to the Upper Mississippi Valley, with the highest flash-flood risk focused over northern Kansas, Missouri, southern Iowa and Nebraska.
The repeated storms are forcing communities to make fast decisions in a narrow window before the next wave arrives. With tornadoes, hail, destructive wind and floodwater all in play, the strain on homes, schools, utilities and emergency managers is mounting across a long swath of the country, and the threat is expected to keep shifting east later in the week.
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