Severe weather to pepper multiple areas of US

After severe thunderstorms brought damaging winds and hail to portions of the Midwest, southern Plains and mid-Atlantic on Monday, another similar threat will ramp up Tuesday.

While one complex of severe storms blew through portions of Missouri, Illinois and Indiana, on Monday, another area of severe storms rocked the mid-Atlantic. Across the country on Monday, there were over 200 reports of damaging winds, and a good portion of those cropped up from western New York to southeastern Virginia.

An additional area of severe storms unleashed damaging winds and large hail over portions of western and central Texas through Monday night.

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Multiple areas of strong-to-severe thunderstorms are expected to develop once again on Tuesday.

The first area that will have to be wary of severe weather encompasses the eastern Great Lakes. The same area of low pressure and associated cold front that fired up activity across the Midwest on Monday, will dig eastward on Tuesday and encounter plenty of atmospheric fuel in the form of hot, muggy air.

The threat for severe thunderstorms will begin early Tuesday and stretch from eastern Ohio to southern Ontario, Canada. An eastward progression of the severe weather threat will continue throughout the day.

Residents of western Pennsylvania and New York can expect to encounter these strong storms by later Tuesday afternoon and early Tuesday evening. Thunderstorms will begin to diminish Tuesday evening across far southern Quebec, Canada, central New York, central Pennsylvania and western Maryland.

Damaging winds with an AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 65 mph, hail and torrential downpours will be the main threats with storms across the region Tuesday. Localized flash flooding can become an issue for areas impacted by the heaviest storms.

In the United States, a few cities in the path of Tuesday's storms include Cleveland, Pittsburgh and Buffalo, New York. A few Canadian cities also at risk include Toronto and Ottawa.

In addition to the northern United States and southern Canada, additional areas of strong-to-severe storms are expected to fire up in the southern U.S. Tuesday.

The southern portion of the same cold front set to impact areas farther north, will dig into the southeastern portion of the country on Tuesday.

A swath of rain and thunderstorms will stretch from Texas to Georgia, Tuesday, with heavier thunderstorms set to impact eastern Texas, through western Arkansas.

"Monday's showers and thunderstorms dumped pockets of heavy rain in southeastern Texas," AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Carl Babinski said. "There's a concern that the Houston area will become very active again Tuesday afternoon and evening."

The most pressing threat from a majority of the day's stronger storms in the southern U.S. will be heavy rain. However, from later Tuesday afternoon into Tuesday evening, a few storms may strengthen enough from the Arklatex--the region where Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas, join together--to the Texas Gulf coast to produce damaging wind gusts.

The final portion of the country AccuWeather forecasters are monitoring for severe weather on Tuesday includes a majority of eastern New Mexico and far western Texas.

Scattered severe thunderstorms are expected to initiate across eastern New Mexico Tuesday afternoon and produce damaging wind gusts and hail into early Tuesday evening.

The gustiest storms across this area will approach an AccuWeather Local StormMax™ of 70 mph.

Storms across eastern New Mexico and western Texas, are forecast to appear rather sparse when compared to bulkier activity across other portions of the country.

However, these storms will usher in an additional hazard for areas in New Mexico that end up having no rain reach the ground Tuesday--dry lightning.

Dry lighting occurs when the air near the surface is so dry, any precipitation from thunderstorms above evaporates before it reaches the ground. However, lightning that occurs in these storms is still able to strike the ground.

Portions of New Mexico are under moderate-to-extreme drought, according to the United States Drought Monitor, which leads to heightened wildfire danger across the area, Any dry lightning strikes can ignite a wildfire during what is already an active start to the wildfire season.

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