Capital Weather Gang

Welcome back fall: Big front to bring sudden end to summery weather in the East

Strong to severe storms with strong winds and a slight tornado risk are possible Friday and Saturday

By Matthew Cappucci
Yesterday at 12:52 p.m. EDT | Updated yesterday at 2:30 p.m. EDT

A strong autumn cold front is sweeping across the Lower 48, bringing a sharp drop in temperatures and a few strong to severe storms. It’s one of several fronts that will gradually cause the stair-step drop in warmth associated with the changing seasons, replacing summerlike mildness in the East with a dry, crisp autumnal air mass by Sunday.

The front’s parent storm system already dropped up to 28 inches of snow on parts of the Rockies as it unleashed a surge of cold air in the mountains before bringing severe weather to the Great Plains. Nearly two dozen tornadoes were reported, concentrated heavily in northwest Kansas and Oklahoma on Tuesday and in northeastern South Dakota and western Minnesota on Wednesday.

Now in a weakened state, the front is still surging east and will present at least some severe weather risk, albeit less widespread. The National Weather Service Storm Prediction Center issued a “slight” risk of severe weather, or Level 2 out of 5, for parts of the Tennessee and Ohio valleys Friday, with a “marginal” risk, or Level 1 out of 5, in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast on Saturday.

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Jason Samenow contributed to this report.

By Matthew Cappucci
Matthew Cappucci is a meteorologist for Capital Weather Gang. He earned a B.A. in atmospheric sciences from Harvard University in 2019, and has contributed to The Washington Post since he was 18. He is an avid storm chaser and adventurer, and covers all types of weather, climate science, and astronomy. Twitter https://twitter.com/MatthewCappucci