Easter Sunday severe weather threat covers over 20 million across heartland

DALLAS - A multi-day severe weather pattern that has already produced tornadoes and blistering hail to the Mississippi Valley over the past few days continues to threaten tens of millions into Easter, with perhaps the most dangerous day of thunderstorms still yet to come on Sunday.

On Saturday morning, a tornado-warned storm left a trail of damage in Springdale, with power lines knocked askew, broken car windows and metal streetlights bent in half.

The storm threat contracts geographically, but ramps up in intensity on Easter Sunday as a powerful upper-level storm system moves from the Texas Panhandle into the Midwest during the day.

"This is our biggest risk for severe storms that we've had in this stretch so far," says FOX Weather Meteorologist Jane Minar.

A rapidly strengthening low pressure center tracking from eastern Oklahoma into Iowa, will carry a potent warm front that will pull in more humid air, adding fuel for severe storms. Daytime heating will further destabilize the atmosphere, allowing thunderstorms to quickly intensify.

"As (the system) starts to eject into the Plains, that negative tilt often throws this corridor of really strong wind in the mid-levels of the atmosphere," Minar said. "That's going to help get some twisting on the board. Warm front lifting up through the region also provides an environment, that warm sector, for possible tornadoes."

A Level 3 out of 5 risk of severe weather covers much of Missouri, including Springfield and Columbia, stretching south into northern Arkansas, including Little Rock. St. Louis, Missouri sits just outside that risk zone in a Level 2 threat. About 20 million people are inside Sunday's severe weather threat zone.

Storms may begin developing late in the morning across eastern Kansas and Oklahoma, with a more organized line of severe storms expected across western Missouri and northwest Arkansas by the afternoon, according to the FOX Forecast Center.  All risks of severe weather -- tornadoes, large hail and damaging wind gusts -- are on the table.

As the system races northeast, storms will continue moving rapidly into parts of Illinois and possibly southern Iowa. While there’s still some uncertainty about how much instability will be in place, conditions are aligning for potentially significant severe weather.

The severe weather threat wanes overnight Sunday with just general scattered thunderstorms forecast for Monday as the front treks east.