This Week in Weather

Rearview

The week produced 63 confirmed tornadoes, 209 hail reports, and 936 wind reports across the contiguous United States — a wind-heavy ratio that points to organized linear convection dominating much of the outbreak activity.

Kansas, Texas, Missouri, Michigan, and Indiana led all states in combined storm reports, with Kansas alone accounting for 165. The pattern was consistent with a progressive trough driving discrete supercells ahead of a dryline early in the period, then transitioning to squall-line mode as the boundary accelerated east.

NOAA NESDIS

The most concentrated tornado activity arrived in two geographic pulses. On the evening of May 22 (CDT), warnings fired across South Texas — Kenedy and Willacy counties — near the Rio Grande Valley, an area that rarely anchors a tornado sequence of this duration. Less than two days later, on the night of May 23 into early May 24, Grayson and Hardin counties in Kentucky were under a tornado warning just after 8:30 p.m. local time, followed by a Jackson, Mississippi warning around 4:25 a.m. CDT on May 24. By late afternoon and evening of May 24, the sequence had extended into Hamilton County, Tennessee, then crossed into Georgia — Madison County at approximately 7:57 p.m. EDT, and Elbert and Hart counties at 8:00 p.m. EDT — marking a sustained northeast-tracking corridor over roughly 20 hours.

Greg Lundeen / NOAA

Flash flood warnings (164) and flash flood watches (358) were substantial, reflecting the same deep moisture that fueled convection across the mid-South. Five dust storm warnings, all in the Desert Southwest or Southern Plains, rounded out the week's more unusual entries.

On the seismic side, a M6.6 struck the southern East Pacific Rise on May 20 — a mid-ocean ridge location with no population exposure — and a M6.0 hit 13 km south of Honaunau-Napoopoo on the Big Island of Hawaii. Neither generated a tsunami warning. Space weather was quiet: Kp peaked at 0 for the week, and the strongest solar flare was an M2.4 on May 22 at 10:29 UTC, with no Earth-directed coronal mass ejection on record.

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Roadmap

The dominant feature shaping the next seven days is a broad upper-level trough anchored over the central Rockies and Plains, with a downstream ridge attempting to build along the East Coast. That configuration keeps the jet stream in a southwest-to-northeast orientation across the Mississippi Valley — the same alignment that has been producing severe weather for the past two weeks and shows no structural reason to change.

Gulf of Mexico precipitable water values remain elevated, and the low-level jet is forecast to pulse on multiple nights this week, particularly Tuesday through Thursday. The combination of residual boundary-layer moisture, a series of shortwaves rotating through the base of the trough, and modest but persistent wind shear creates a setup where isolated severe weather is possible on four or five of the next seven days rather than being confined to a single outbreak day.

Central Plains and Mid-South (KS, MO, AR, TN, MS) This is the highest-risk corridor for the week. A shortwave passing through on Tuesday evening (local time) is expected to focus convective initiation along a surface boundary draped from Kansas into Missouri. Hail and damaging wind are the primary hazards; tornado potential depends on how cleanly the cap breaks. A second, potentially more organized round is possible Thursday as another disturbance digs southeast. Rainfall totals of 2–4 inches, locally higher along training convective lines, are plausible across Arkansas and Tennessee by week's end.

Great Lakes and Ohio Valley (MI, IN, OH, KY) The same progressive trough that energizes the Plains will lift into the Great Lakes Wednesday into Thursday. Mesoscale convective systems that organize overnight on the Plains often arrive in the Ohio Valley in weakened but still wind-capable form. The region should expect a 48-hour window — Wednesday afternoon through Thursday evening — with elevated wind and hail probabilities, particularly across southern Michigan and northern Indiana, which have already logged significant storm report totals this week.

Southeast and Gulf Coast (GA, AL, FL) The ridge building off the East Coast will suppress deep convection across Florida and the coastal Southeast for the first half of the week. A surface front stalling near the Georgia-Alabama border mid-week could focus scattered afternoon storms Thursday and Friday, but the synoptic-scale setup favors disorganized convection rather than a structured severe threat. Rainfall will be welcome in areas that have seen repeated storm tracks pass just to the north.

International: Western Europe A pattern shift is underway across the North Atlantic. A weakening ridge over the British Isles is allowing a series of Atlantic lows to push onshore through Scandinavia and the Iberian Peninsula. Northern Spain and southern France are forecast to see 40–70 mm of rainfall over a 72-hour period mid-week, with the Pyrenees potentially exceeding 100 mm — a meaningful total for early June climatology in that region. Travel disruptions along the Bay of Biscay coast are plausible by Wednesday.

NOAA OPC

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What to Watch

• The Tuesday and Thursday convective windows across Kansas, Missouri, and Arkansas are the highest-probability severe weather opportunities of the week; both days warrant monitoring model guidance 24 hours in advance for mesoscale convective organization.
• The M6.0 near Honaunau-Napoopoo, Hawaii warrants attention for aftershock potential — the Big Island's southern flank, near the Hilina Slump system, has a documented history of post-mainshock sequences in the days following events of this magnitude.
• Flash flooding remains a credible secondary hazard across the mid-South through Thursday, particularly where Tuesday's convection deposits 2+ inches before the Thursday system arrives on already-saturated soil.