Severe Weather Threat Returns To Storm-Fatigued Plains, South Late This Week

Jennifer Gray Tue, April 21, 2026 at 7:19 PM UTC

3

Severe weather is expected to return to parts of the Plains and South later this week and continue into early next week following last week's siege of tornadoes, hail and damaging winds in some of those areas.

While the details are still being fine-tuned, consider this your early look at the week ahead when it comes to the risk of severe weather.

Thursday

The next round of severe weather will impact a portion of the Plains from Minnesota to Oklahoma, possibly into parts of Texas Thursday afternoon and evening. Oklahoma City, Kansas City, Omaha, Des Moines and Minneapolis need to be on guard.

Large hail, damaging wind gusts and a few tornadoes are possible, particularly in the darker contours in the map below.

Friday Through Monday

In parts of the South, severe thunderstorms will be a threat for several more days in a row.

Friday's threat is most likely centered from northeast Texas into the Ozarks, but some thunderstorms could also extend into the mid-Mississippi and Ohio Valleys.

This weekend's threat appears centered on the Plains from Texas to Oklahoma and Kansas, extending to the Ozarks. Cities like Little Rock and Dallas may see multiple days of severe weather.

Advertisement

And on Monday, at least some severe storms are possible in the lower Mississippi and Tennessee Valleys.

While it's too soon to lay out details of each threat, large hail, damaging wind gusts, a few tornadoes and locally flooding rain is possible in these areas.

Shaded on the map above is the likelihood of severe thunderstorms, according to NOAA's Storm Prediction Center. Note that not all categories apply to the severe weather risk on a particular day.Last Week's Siege

This small breather early this week is welcomed after a busy stretch last week.

Last Friday alone, there were 86 tornado reports among the 500 severe weather reports.

Data: NOAA/NWS/SPC

In all, there were over 1,300 reports of severe weather in the U.S. from last Monday through last Friday, including 143 reports of tornadoes, 531 reports of hail and 628 reports of thunderstorm wind damage or high wind gusts.

As you can see, many of the same areas that are under the risk of severe weather later this week are areas that have already been hit hard by severe weather last week.

Make sure you have multiple ways to receive alerts, should severe weather strike on Thursday and Friday.

Jennifer Gray is a weather and climate writer for weather.com. She has been covering some of the world's biggest weather and climate stories for the last two decades.

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Breaking”