Historic and life-threatening are two words that are never good when it comes to weather forecasts.
AccuWeather is predicting up to four months’ worth of rain will fall over the next five days along a 1,000-mile-long swath from Texas to Ohio.
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“More than 46 million people will be affected by rounds of intense rainfall and at least 13 million will be within a high- to extreme-flood risk zone. Within these higher-risk areas, there is the potential for catastrophic flooding in some communities,” AccuWeather said.
Here’s what is coming and what Florida can expect.
Heat dome: System of high pressure over Southeast to block path of downpours
Normally, storm systems travel west-to-east or northwest-to-southeast as they move across the U.S. This week, that path “will be blocked by a building zone of high pressure over the Southeast states that will evolve into a heat dome.”
Florida could see near record high temperatures later this week and into the weekend before a “decent cold front” around April 8 brings “refreshingly cooler drier air” for April 9-11, according to the National Weather Service Tampa Bay.
Rain is not in the forecast for most of Florida, with dry conditions expected across the state into the weekend, although some areas in the Panhandle could see some showers Sunday.
South Florida is already experiencing drought conditions and 13 Florida counties have an increased risk for wildfires.
EF0 tornado snapped pine trees in Leon County as storms hit March 31
A line of storms that moved through Florida earlier this week produced a tornado in Leon County.
The National Weather Service said the EF0 tornado had peak winds of 85 mph and was on the ground for 1.9 miles, touching down along Tram Road in southeastern Leon County and ending south of Apalachee Regional Park as it moved to the east on March 31.
“The tornado snapped pine trees in several locations,” the National Weather Service report said. There was no damage to structures reported.
Tropical moisture to blame for ‘atmospheric river’
Historic rainfall is expected to impact millions across the U.S. April 2-7, 2025.
Areas from the Ozarks in Arkansas to the middle portion of the Mississippi Valley to much of the Ohio Valley can expect a “conveyor belt of moisture” through Saturday night, according to AccuWeather.
“That moisture plume, known as an atmospheric river, will be tropical in nature and originate from the Caribbean,” AccuWeather Senior Storm Warning Meteorologist William Clark said.
➤ Forecast calls for ‘catastrophic’ floods: Where will it rain the hardest?
“This will behave like a tropical storm moving slowly across the area,” AccuWeather said, adding that “tropical moisture raises the risk of excessive rainfall.”
“Should the amount of rain occur that we anticipate over the middle of the nation, it would exceed the 500 to 1,000-year average,” Clark said, “Truly, the potential is there for a historic flash flooding event.”
At this time, that tropical moisture is expected to miss Florida and the National Hurricane Center is not expecting anything in its tropical outlooks.
26 million people in US under flood watch
The National Weather Service has put a flood watch in effect for a huge chunk of the middle of the country, all the way from northeast Texas to northeast Ohio. In all, some 26 million people live where the flood watch is in effect.
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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Historic rainfall impact millions US. Florida drought, record heat
