The South and Midwest Face Threats of Hail, 100 M.P.H. Winds and Tornadoes

“A multiday severe weather episode,” the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center called a powerful cross-country storm system in their key message this week.

Bringing with it a threat of damaging wind gusts from 60 to 100 miles per hour, hail the size of baseballs, tornadoes and strong thunderstorms, the system is expected to unleash widespread severe weather across the Midwest on Friday before heading into the South on Saturday and passing through the East Coast on Sunday.

While the effects are expected to be significant, Scott Kleebauer, a meteorologist with the Weather Prediction Center, said a storm of this strength is not unusual for this time of year.

“It is a very textbook early spring disturbance,” Mr. Kleebauer said. Winds high in the atmosphere are pulling warm, humid air from the Gulf of Mexico northward, where it will collide with colder air to the north. “That’s going to cause heavy rain and a severe outbreak across the South,” he added.

The storms could move quickly.

The initial severe storms are likely to happen Friday afternoon and Friday night, especially across parts of Arkansas, Tennessee, Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois, Mississippi and Alabama.

Forecasters in St. Louis said a dangerous severe weather outbreak is possible, and that these storms will likely move very fast — sometimes reaching the speeds of cars on the interstate highways — potentially catching people off guard and leaving long trails of damage.

They also said the center of the storm system is likely to undergo rapid cyclogenesis, making it a “bomb cyclone” because its central pressure is expected to drop rapidly in 24 hours, creating a more volatile system.

Although the core strength of the storm will remain well to the north, its influence will be felt in the Southern states.

“Some of the severe thunderstorms are going to be displaced from the center of the storm,” said Bob Oravec, the lead forecaster at the Weather Prediction Center. These storms will develop along the cold front as it moves eastward, creating a line of severe weather stretching across large portions of the South and Midwest.

Tornadoes are possible in the Mississippi Valley.

Areas of Missouri, Illinois and Tennessee were the most likely to see tornadoes on Friday and were likely to be the first to see winds kick up Friday morning, contributing to an elevated fire danger. (A more extreme risk of fire exists across the Southern Plains to the west.)

Tornadoes typically occur across the South from the middle of March until late April, when the risk shifts to the Plains. Notable springtime Southern tornadoes include one that ripped a hole in the roof of the Georgia Dome in downtown Atlanta during the Southeastern Conference college basketball tournament on March 14, 2008, a deadly tornado that carved a path through Tuscaloosa, Ala. on April 27, 2011, and one that killed 19 just east of Nashville on March 3, 2020.

Severe weather is likely to shift east through the weekend.

Forecasters at the Storm Prediction Center warned that a tornado outbreak was possible on Saturday across the central Gulf Coast States, the Deep South and the Tennessee Valley. Numerous tornadoes were possible Saturday afternoon and evening in an area centered over eastern Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.

Widespread damaging winds, scattered large hail and heavy rain in these areas were a growing concern, according to forecasters.

The threat of severe weather is expected to continue into the weekend, as the front pushes eastward.

“There is a slight chance of severe weather anywhere from North Florida all the way up along the East Coast to the Washington, D.C., area, Philadelphia and just outside New York City,” Mr. Oravec said. “It’s not going to be as great a risk as areas farther to the west.”

The storm is expected to move offshore on Monday.

The system of turbulent weather started as an atmospheric river that slammed into California earlier this week, unleashing rain, snow and a tornado in Los Angeles.