Forecasters are warning of another day of increased risk of dangerous tornadoes in the Midwest on Saturday, telling people in South Texas they could face triple-digit temperatures – and that’s with four weeks to go before summer begins.
The Oklahoma weather service likened the day to “a gasoline-soaked pile of brush.” Forecasters are not confident that storms will form, but any that do could explode with large hail, dangerous winds and tornadoes. The millions of people traveling over the Memorial Day weekend have been warned that wild weather could derail travel plans.
“There’s a small chance that most of the games will be blind and we’ll only see a few storms today. Still, that’s not a game I would want to play in. It only takes one storm to have an impact,” the National Weather Service said in Norman. Oklahoma, wrote on Facebook.
Excessive heat, especially in May, is the danger in South Texas, where the heat index is expected to approach 120 degrees Fahrenheit this weekend. Parts of the state, including Houston, have already experienced severe storms and power outages that left residents stranded vulnerable to high temperatures earlier in May. The region is at the northern end of a heat dome that stretches from Mexico to South America, National Weather Service meteorologist Zack Taylor said.
Sunday looks like the hottest day with record highs forecast for late May for Austin, Brownsville, Dallas and San Antonio, Taylor said.
Temperatures were approaching 90 degrees and the heat index was 104 in Brownsville on the U.S.-Mexico border by Saturday morning, according to the National Weather Service.
Red Flag fire warnings are also in effect in western Texas, all of New Mexico and parts of Oklahoma, Arizona and Colorado, where very low humidity of less than 10%, wind gusts up to 60 miles per hour combine with the high temperatures.
“We have very dry air, warm temperatures and high winds, creating a high fire danger over a wide area… which could lead to rapidly spreading or out-of-control fires,” Taylor said.
Meanwhile, several inches of snow fell Friday into early Saturday in Rolla, North Dakota, about 10 miles from the Canadian border.
The millions of people travel warnings have been issued ahead of Memorial Day weekend that wild weather could disrupt travel plans.
April and May were a busy month for tornadoes, especially in the Midwest. Climate change increases the severity of storms around the world.
April had the country’s second highest number of tornadoes recorded by the National Weather Service. And by 2024, the U.S. is already 25% ahead of the average number of twisters, according to the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.
Iowa has been hit the hardest so far this week. A deadly twister destroyed Groenveld, a city about 60 miles south of the capital Des Moines, killing at least five people and injuring dozens of others. Other storms brought flooding and wind damage elsewhere in the state.
The storm system causing the severe weather is expected to move east as the Memorial Day weekend continues, bringing rain that could delay Sunday’s Indianapolis 500 auto race in Indiana and more severe storms in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Kentucky.
The risk of severe weather will move to North Carolina and Virginia on Monday, forecasters said.
