Severe Weather Outbreak Underway

A widespread severe weather outbreak continues to unfold across portions of the Midwest, Ohio Valley and Mississippi Valley areas, and is developing Southward into the deep South at this time.

Below is the latest severe weather outlook issued by the SPC, which shows a relatively rare "High Risk" area for late October:

Tornado watches are currently in effect all across the moderate and high risk areas:

One of the watches has the "buzz words" of:  "This is a particularly dangerous situation..." meaning that long tracked and/or strong to violent tornadoes are possible within the watch area:



I'm trying to think of the last time a "high risk" of severe weather was forecast in late October, much less with a PDS Tornado Watch issued this time of the year.  Nothing is coming to mind immediately, I'll try to research that later on today if I get some free time.

Warnings are also widespread across the region, with many of them tornado warnings at this time:

This outbreak is the result of the interaction of a strong cold front and vigorous upper level storm system moving into the region.  This is the same system that we began watching/talking about last week.