Severe thunderstorms are forecast to batter the southern and central United States on Tuesday, with a threat of tornadoes, damaging winds, blizzards, flash flooding and dust storms possible from the southern Plains into the lower Mississippi Valley and south-east.
Meteorologists warn that a line of powerful thunderstorms will probably sweep through Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, and could include destructive tornadoes. The main threats are strong destructive gales, tornadoes and at least some areas of large hail.
The “unusually strong” storm system has been gaining strength over the past few days, boosted by warm, moist air from the Gulf thanks in part to human-made global heating.
The weather system has already led to the cancellation of some Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans, with more disruption expected across the south and midwest through Wednesday. There is also a risk of flash floods as heavy rainfall is forecast for parts of the midwest and down into the Lower Mississippi Valley and mid-south region on Tuesday.
A tornado watch has been issued for far east Texas into much of central and northern Louisiana and southern Arkansas through Tuesday afternoon.
Potentially historic fire conditions could lead to blazes across the Texas Hill Country and south central Texas on Tuesday, including Austin and San Antonio.
Almost 400,000 utility customers were without electricity on Tuesday morning, 375,000 in Texas, the rest in Oklahoma, according to Power Outage, a company that tracks blackouts. A warehouse collapsed in eastern Lewisville, Texas, early on Tuesday morning burying nearby cars in debris after a likely tornado, according to Texas storm chasers.
Meanwhile the North Carolina forest service listed 176 fires spanning more than 3,300 acres as of Tuesday morning. The largest was in Polk county in the western part of the state – a 600-acre blaze that was about 60% contained.
There is critical to extreme fire weather danger across much of the southern High Plains going through to the middle part of the week, according to the National Weather Service (NWS) – which has also warned of above-normal fire risks throughout March.
To the north, blizzard conditions are likely across the central Plains, including portions of Colorado, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa and into Minnesota as heavy snow is whipped around by strong winds creating near zero visibility and a deadly hazard for road users.
NWS meteorologists said temperatures would be highly changeable going through the middle of the week due to the storm, which is moving eastwards – bringing rain and thunderstorms across the east coast. Severe storms could hit regions across the mid-Atlantic towards the middle/end of the week.
Meanwhile, a new Pacific storm system is forecast to make landfall in California on Wednesday.
Fire and storm warnings – and response – depend on predictive data and mapping from federal agencies including National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) and the department of agriculture (USDA) which are facing catastrophic budget and staff cuts by Elon Musk on behalf of the Trump administration.
“The Trump administration’s mass layoffs of thousands of forest service employees, combined with federal funding freezes that affect wildfire mitigation and prevention projects, are their own red flag warnings going into this year’s fire season,” said Rachel Cleetus, the policy director with the Climate and Energy program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, on Tuesday.
