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Thursday afternoon and evening will be another dangerous day in the Central Plains. We will once again have a chance for strong long-track tornadoes. The area at greatest risk extends from Oklahoma City to just East of Kansas City. Then up along the Iowa, Nebraska border and towards Minneapolis. There is the potential this forecast could be upgraded to a high risk Thursday morning. Widespread storm damage from tornadoes, wind and hail is expected in/around the following cities: Wichita, Topeka, Omaha and Sioux City. Storm damage is also possible in/around Oklahoma City and Minneapolis.

We will also see severe weather Wednesday afternoon and evening but wind damage and hail will be the primary threats with only a few tornadoes expected. The highly populated Washington D.C. to Baltimore area will see strong storms with damaging winds early this evening. In Northern Kansas and Southern Nebraska it will be the threat of large hail late tonight.

One of the more interesting statistics I've found in this incredibly active tornado season, is the Preliminary Tornado Reports. In just a little over 5 months in 2008 we have had 1282 tornado reports. That's only 18 less than all of last year! 2007 was even an active tornado year, we had 1300 reports of tornadoes from January thru December. It's too early for the confirmed number for this year but it is safe to say we are on pace to challenge the record number of twisters we saw in 2004 with 1717 confirmed tornadoes. The high number of twisters in 2004 is mostly attributed to hundreds of weak tornadoes produced by our 4 land falling U.S. hurricanes that summer.