MoxSync

Severe thunderstorms brought destructive winds, baseball-sized hail and a couple of tornadoes across the Midwest and mid-South on Sunday, and more severe weather is expected Monday in the eastern United States.

A level 3 out of 5 enhanced risk of severe weather has been drawn by the Storm Prediction Center and encompasses much of the Interstate 95 corridor, including Philadelphia, Baltimore, D.C., Richmond, Virginia Beach and Raleigh.

That’s where thunderstorms could bring the risk of hail and straight-line winds during the afternoon and evening, including hail the size of golf balls farther south in the Carolina Piedmont. Charlotte and Greensboro, N.C., and Columbia, S.C., could be affected; there’s a level 2 out of 5 slight risk of severe weather there. An isolated tornado can’t be ruled out.

D.C.-area forecast: Severe storm threat today; storm chance tomorrow

The forecast follows a widespread weather episode that brought in nearly 450 reports of severe weather from Michigan to the Deep South. Baseball-sized hail hit Starke, Martin and Orange counties in Indiana, and hail up to softball-size was reported in the state’s Owen County. Grapefruit-sized chunks of ice, rare for late June, bombarded the town of Thola in north central Arkansas.

A tornado struck Johnson County, Ind., a suburb on the south side of Indianapolis. It whirled between interstates 69 and 65, carving through subdivisions and terrorizing the towns of Waverly, New Whitehead and Greenwood. Seventy-five homes were damaged along the tornado’s approximately three-mile path.

Another tornado was reported farther south in Martin County, Ind., midway between Indianapolis and Louisville. At least one person was reported killed after the twister destroyed their home.

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There were at least two other reported deaths in Arkansas, where strong winds toppled a tree onto a home. There were numerous other reports of damaging winds with Sunday’s storms, including in Jackson, Miss., where a gust up to 76 mph was clocked at the airport. A gust of 80 mph snapped six utility poles along Highway 64 in Shelby County, Tenn., which includes Memphis, and an equally-strong burst of winds threw a pop-up camper and snapped trees in Portsmouth, Va.

Monday’s storms

The risk of severe weather on Monday is dependent on a pocket of frigid air, low pressure and spin aloft. It’s centered over the Great Lakes and nestled within a dip in the jet stream. Cooling temperatures aloft will encourage sun-baked surface air to rise during the afternoon, forming strong storms. Jet stream winds, meanwhile, will provide momentum that storms can mix to the ground in the form of damaging wind gusts.

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At ground level, a cold front reached from western Lake Erie to Columbus, Ohio, to Nashville and was moving east. That will be the trigger for which thunderstorms form. A warm front was lifting north toward New York City, causing a warm, soupy and largely unstable air mass to spread over the Mid-Atlantic. That will provide fuel to energize severe thunderstorms.

MCS debris is tracking over the Mid-Atlantic and suppressing the thermo environment. Strong CIN is currently in place over most of the ENH risk area.

I expect thermo to recover some, but lapse rates appear lower than forecast and shear is limited. Timing will be later #vawx pic.twitter.com/938GaY6cZU

In central Virginia, a feature called an MCV, or mesoscale convective vortex, was moving through. That leftover swirl of weak low pressure from Sunday’s storms was draping a veil of cloud cover overhead, cutting back on daytime heating and reducing the severe weather risk.

That said, storms are still likely to form along and west of Interstate 81 during the mid- to late afternoon, pushing east toward Interstate 95 into the evening. Initial thunderstorms may produce large hail before eventually merging into clusters and lines, which would have a greater risk of damaging winds.

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They’ll shift toward the Richmond to Washington to Philadelphia corridor during the back half of the evening commute, reaching the Chesapeake by 7 p.m. or 8 p.m. and targeting the Delmarva Peninsula or pushing offshore of the Carolinas by 10 p.m. Timing may be delayed by slower daytime heating, which means it might take a hair longer to pop storms.

Additional thunderstorms, a couple of them expected to be strong, are possible along the immediate Mid-Atlantic coastline on Tuesday before the cold front exits offshore.

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