After several recent days of intense storm forecasts across the Midwest, meteorologists have warned that Monday’s weather has the potential to be the most severe yet.
Tens of millions of people from Texas to the Great Lakes live in areas where severe weather — hail, heavy rain, destructive winds or tornadoes — could develop during the day, but forecasters warned that the greatest potential threat was centered over Kansas and Nebraska.
“Today the main threat is tornadoes, which could be strong to intense, mostly for Central Kansas and portions of southeastern Nebraska and far northwest Missouri,” Andrew Lyons, a meteorologist with the Storm Prediction Center, said on Monday.
This is the time of year for storms like this, but they can be tricky to predict.
Thunderstorms can occur nationwide, and at any time, “day or night, throughout the entire year,” the National Weather Service said, but they are most common in the late afternoon and evening during warmer months.
Unlike larger weather systems, such as hurricanes or winter storms, which can be tracked over hundreds of miles and several days, thunderstorms tend to be hyperlocal and short-lived. Bill Bunting, deputy director at the federal Storm Prediction Center, said their unpredictability stemmed from their complexity and size.
Scientists have been able to draw links between a warming planet and many types of extreme weather, including hurricanes, heat waves and droughts. But they are not yet able to determine whether there is a link between climate change and the frequency or strength of tornadoes. Read more about tornadoes and climate change here.
Researchers say that in recent years tornadoes seem to be occurring in greater “clusters” and that the area of the United States known as Tornado Alley, a region where most tornadoes occur, seems to be shifting east.
How to prepare: