Dangerous weather is coming to a vast section of America this weekend.
Dubbed a “megastorm” by the Associated Press, tornadoes, blizzards, and flooding are all possible across different parts of middle America beginning on Friday.
“If there’s a time of the year where a storm like this can deliver these coast-to-coast impacts, we are in it,” said Benjamin Reppert, a meteorologist at Penn State University.
The National Weather Service forecast projects wind gusts of up to 80 mph from the Canadian border to the Rio Grande, which creates a threat of fires in New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas, while blizzards could hit the Dakotas and Minnesota.
The severe thunderstorm threat alone will stretch across approximately 1 million square miles and include 30 states as it progresses eastward. https://t.co/EGAcy4Y099 pic.twitter.com/2aW6Fr3a5J
— AccuWeather (@accuweather) March 13, 2025
A risk of tornadoes and hail threatens the Gulf Coast to Wisconsin as severe thunderstorms spread.
“We expect as many as two dozen or more tornadoes, as well as hundreds of reports of damaging wind gusts, by the end of this weekend,” AccuWeather meteorologist Bernie Rayno said, according to USA Today.
“Strong tornadoes could strike after dark Friday, which is extremely dangerous, especially during the overnight hours while many people are asleep,” AccuWeather Senior Director of Forecasting Operations Dan DePodwin said.
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“Please take time now to make sure your storm shelter or safe room is ready for use and stocked with emergency supplies in case a tornado warning is issued in your community,” he said.
Overall, the severe weather will impact more than 150 million people, according to Fox Weather, which called the storms “widespread and dangerous.”
Fox said the highest risk for tornadoes is in a region between Davenport, Iowa, to Jackson, Mississippi, noting that a 1,000-mile long section of the nation faces the threat of tornadoes, with the mid-Mississippi Valley likely to bear the brunt of the bad weather.
A tornado outbreak anticipated for Saturday…
This is the first Day 3 Moderate (Level 4/5) Risk of its kind in the last 3 years
Last time this was issued was in March 22nd 2022
I remember being on the ground the next day for @foxweather talking with families in the aftermath pic.twitter.com/ewFxK0rLVD
— Steve Bender (@weatherbender_) March 13, 2025
On Saturday, the tornado outbreaks could move to the central Gulf Coast states and the Tennessee Valley.
Southern and central Mississippi, northern Alabama, east and central Tennessee and northern Georgia are all at risk.
The East Coast gets its turn Sunday, where tornadoes will be possible along the Virginia coast and into the Carolinas.
Reppert told the Associated Press that the storm draws its power from the collision of warm air in the upper atmosphere and a cool air mass tagging along behind it.
Russ Schumacher, a climatologist at Colorado State University, said the storm could become a bomb cyclone Friday. Bomb cyclones take place when storms grow in strength so fast that the atmospheric pressure takes a major dip within 24 hours. They produce higher wind and more rain than an average storm.
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