Dangerous Heat in the Central and Southern U.S.; Thunderstorms and Heavy Rain in the Northern Plains

Dangerous, prolonged heat is expected across portions of the Central and Southeast U.S. through July. Scattered severe thunderstorms are expected over parts of the northern Plains into the upper Mississippi Valley Tuesday, with damaging winds and large hail as the primary threats. Heavy rainfall could lead to areas of flooding across the northern Plains, Upper Midwest, Southeast and Southwest. Read More >

Spring 2023 ended up slightly below normal temperature-wise and with above normal snowfall and generally below normal precipitation overall. The averages don’t really capture the story very well, however, as there were several notable pattern changes throughout the spring. March was noticeably colder than normal with above normal precipitation, including snow. Then, a very pronounced warmup happened in April which melted most of the snowpack around the region and led to widespread areal flooding. Temperatures cooled down a bit for a couple weeks after that with more wintry systems passing through, bringing above average snowfall for April. Another stark pattern shift was observed in May with well below normal rainfall and warmer than normal temperatures. Plentiful moisture and flooding was pretty quickly replaced by dry weather and drought.