A cold front stretching from the Midwest to the southern Plains on Sunday will erase any late-springlike heat that built up over the eastern half of the country. Chilly air behind this front will clash with warm, moist air ahead of it and explosive thunderstorms will develop where these two air masses meet.
More than 25 million people are under a level 3 of 5 risk of severe thunderstorms Sunday, according to the Storm Prediction Center. Nashville, Indianapolis and St. Louis are just a few of the major cities included in this wide-reaching risk. An additional 45 million people are under a level 2 of 5 risk in surrounding areas, including Dallas, Chicago and Cleveland.
Storms will begin late Sunday afternoon from Illinois to eastern Texas and get more violent as they expand east Sunday evening and overnight through much of the Mississippi, Ohio and Tennessee valleys.
Very large hail bigger than golf balls, damaging wind gusts and tornadoes are expected, according to the SPC.
The atmosphere will be primed for tornadoes and a few could be strong – rated EF2 or greater – and long-lived, the SPC warned.
Most of the strongest thunderstorms will occur after dark and increase the danger: Nighttime tornadoes are nearly twice as likely to be deadly as those occurring during the day, a 2022 study found.
Some storms will also dump heavy rainfall which could cause flash flooding anywhere from the South through the Midwest.
It’s already been a busy year for tornadoes even though the peak of severe weather season is still a few weeks away. There have been about 300 tornado reports since 2025 began, compared to 164 by the end of March 2024.
Only three years since 2010 have had more tornadoes in the first three months of the year: 2023, 2017 and 2013.
Last year saw a huge uptick in tornadoes later in the spring and activity continued through December, with nearly 2,000 tornado reports in total. It marked the second-most tornado reports on record, only behind 2017.
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