Tornado threats in Southeast, snow and cold from Midwest to Northeast
More than 24 million Americans from the Midwest to New England were under winter weather alerts Friday morning, as a snowy system started making its way from Chicago to Boston.
The Gulf Coast and Southeast though may see more typical severe spring weather, including damaging winds, large hail and tornadoes.
Flash flooding is also possible Sunday night into Monday morning across parts of Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina, meteorologists said. Some of the same areas hit by Easter weekend's deadly tornado outbreak could get slammed again by both severe storms and flash flooding.
Meanwhile, people in the Chicago area woke up Friday morning to a blanket of April snow for the second time in days, NBC Chicago reported. Several inches of accumulation were possible by midday in counties south and southwest of the city, and temperatures were not expected to crack the 40s.
A narrow streak of heavy snow will shift from the Midwest to New England through Friday. Another potentially significant severe weather threat is forecast to move quickly from Texas on Sunday to Georgia by Monday morning. The primary severe risk will likely be damaging winds. pic.twitter.com/CFNFxbp93w
— National Weather Service (@NWS) April 17, 2020
The wintry spring storm is predicted to move northeast, and to drop the highest snowfall amounts — up to more than 6 inches — in the northern Appalachians, the Catskills and the highest elevations of the Berkshires, according to the National Weather Service.
Some areas north and west of New York City were forecast to possibly get a couple of inches of snow Friday morning, with Boston and its surrounding areas to see some accumulation by Saturday morning.
In higher elevations where two to five inches of wet and heavy snow was expected, "there may be some damage or outages," NBC Boston reported.
Even in areas east of the Rockies where no snow was predicted, below-average temperatures were expected Friday and Saturday. About 60 million people were under cold alerts across the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and Northeast on Friday morning. Temperatures were forecast to be 10 to 30 degrees below normal, making it feel more like February than April. The central High Plains could see record-low temperatures, the weather service reported.
The snow, and rain in warmer areas, was expected to move off the Atlantic coast on Saturday afternoon, and temperatures are forecast to rebound to near-normal on Sunday.
