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Heat Wave Expands to the East Coast; Flash Flooding Likely in the Central Plains into the Midwest; Severe Thunderstorms in the Northeast

Dangerous, prolonged heat is ongoing in the Mid-South to Mid-Mississippi Valley and heat expands into the Northeast for a brief period today. Widely scattered instances of flash flooding due to heavy rains are forecast from northeast Kansas to much of Indiana. Scattered strong to severe thunderstorms are possible across parts of New England, northern Mid-Atlantic, and North Dakota. Read More >

Overview

On the evening of July 11th, strong storms developed along a front and tracked across parts of eastern South Dakota. The strongest storms produced large hail and damaging winds. The hardest hit area was around Watertown, SD where hail the size of baseballs fell. There was also a 75 mph wind gust recorded at the Watertown Regional Airport, as well as locally torrential rainfall.

Image
Left: Severe Thunderstorm Reports from http://www.spc.noaa.gov/climo/gmf.php?rpt=170711_rpts_filtered

Right: Cloud-to-ground lightning strikes. Data courtesy of Vaisala - U.S. National Lightning Detection Network

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