Severe weather outbreak forecast for South Central states

A dangerous multiple-day severe weather outbreak will begin this weekend over the South Central states and will include the potential for nighttime tornadoes in parts of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska.

A storm will move slowly across the United States over the next seven to 10 days. The storm will affect Southern California with locally drenching rain and mountain snow on Friday. Its next stop will be the Central states this weekend.

While the central and southern Plains are in need of rain, it will come with the price tag of violent storms.

Since the parent storm will not arrive on the scene until late in the day Saturday, most storms are not forecast to ignite until the late-day and nighttime hours.

Major cities at risk for severe weather this weekend include Dallas, Oklahoma City, Wichita, Kan., Omaha, Neb., and Kansas City, Mo.

A relatively mild weekend is predicted for our north and northwest suburbs with highs in the upper 60s today and rain and falling temperatures through Monday.

Because the storms will be passing through large metropolitan areas, the storms have the potential to bring extensive damage, risk to a great number of lives and significant travel disruptions.

According to AccuWeather Enterprise Solutions Storm Warning Meteorologist Scott Breit, "Supercell thunderstorms will develop along the dry line from west-central Kansas to the Oklahoma Panhandle and northwestern Texas late Saturday afternoon with large hail and tornadoes a good bet."

A dry line marks the boundary between desert air to the west and moist Gulf of Mexico air to the east. A supercell thunderstorm is a long-lived, intense storm that often develops rotation and has an elevated risk of producing tornadoes, damaging winds gusts, frequent lightning strikes and very large hail.