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A seemingly relentless series of severe storms, likely with deadly tornadoes, are forecast to rip across parts of America's Midwest and South over the next couple weeks, especially Friday, meteorologists said.
An unusual weather pattern has set in, last week triggering the devastating tornado that hit Rolling Fork, Mississippi, and meteorologists fear this Friday will be one of the worst days, with much more to come. The National Weather Service said 16.8 million people live in the highest risk zone, and more than 66 million people overall should be on alert Friday.
"It's pretty darn clear that somebody is going to take it on the nose on Friday," said Northern Illinois meteorology professor and tornado expert and chaser Victor Gensini. "It's just a matter of where and exactly when."
The weather service is cautioning a large area of the country - including parts of Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, West Virginia, Georgia and Kansas - to be alert for intense thunderstorms, tornadoes and other damaging winds. Big cities in the highest danger area include Memphis, St. Louis, Des Moines and Little Rock.
Gensini fears Friday's onslaught will be deadly.
The storms are expected to start Friday afternoon and go overnight, which is particularly dangerous because people can't see them coming and often won't seek shelter, weather service Storm Prediction Center warning coordination meteorologist Matt Elliott said Wednesday.
"The storms will be moving very quickly," Elliott said. "So you won't have a lot of time to react to warnings as well. So now's the time to start preparing."
Though all the ingredients are there for dangerous storms, it's possible they may not combine precisely enough to pose the threat that meteorologists are warning about, Elliott and others said.
Another batch of severe storms, powered by a "firehose" of unstable waves in the atmosphere that keep flowing from the cold west and combine with moist air from the east, could hit next Tuesday and the next few days after that, said Walker Ashley, another meteorology professor at Northern Illinois and Gensini's storm-chasing partner.
"You could see these things coming days in advance," Ashley said. They will be "continual punches, one, two, three, four."
The weather service is already forecasting another batch of intense storms next Tuesday in the same general area as Friday with fairly high confidence, Elliott said.
At least the first 10 days of April will be rough, said Accuweather meteorologist Brandon Buckingham.