Severe storms possible Thursday around Wisconsin; rain Friday and Saturday is ‘good news’ for region’s drought

© National Weather Service Scattered severe thunderstorms are possible across almost all of Wisconsin on Thursday.

Milwaukee and far southern Wisconsin is sandwiched between two weather systems, both of which could bring strong to severe storms to the state on Thursday, forecasters say.

Strong storms are already occurring across north central Wisconsin. Some of those storms could reach as far south as Fond du Lac and Sheboygan, said Mark Gehring, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Sullivan. 

© National Weather Service Strong storms were affecting north central Wisconsin on Thursday morning.

“We’ll have to watch these storms this morning that are just west and northwest of Green Bay,” Gehring said. 

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Any storms that develop across southern Wisconsin later Thursday could get noisy, but they will be widely scattered across the southern part of the state, forecasters say.

“There is a minimal threat for severe thunderstorms” for the Milwaukee metro area and far southern Wisconsin on Thursday, Gehring said. “We’re going to be between two areas of storms today, but there will be some storms that do pop up.”

Still, forecasters can’t rule out a storm or two reaching severe levels in southern Wisconsin on Thursday into Thursday night, he said. 

In addition to the storms in northern Wisconsin, another set of storms was moving across eastern Iowa and northern Illinois on Thursday.

© Curtis Riganti, National Drought Mitigation Center Wisconsin drought map as of June 22, 2021

Thursday’s rain and storms will usher in a period of wet weather that will continue Friday into Saturday, Gehring said.

“We’re finally getting into a stormy pattern,” Gehring said. “We’re not really confident about widespread showers and storms until late Friday night and then Saturday and Saturday night where everybody should get showers and thunderstorms. But the severe threat there, too, is very minimal.”

Much of Wisconsin is seeing conditions that range from abnormally dry to an area of extreme drought across all of Kenosha County, according to the latest data issued early Thursday by the U.S. Drought Monitor.  

Heading into the weekend, “There will be rounds of showers and storms,” Gehring said. “That’s all good news because of the drought.”  

“That’s great for the crops,” he added. “Things are looking better as far as the drought goes.”

Contact Joe Taschler at (414) 224-2554 or jtaschler@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @JoeTaschler or Facebook at facebook.com/joe.taschler.1.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Severe storms possible Thursday around Wisconsin; rain Friday and Saturday is ‘good news’ for region’s drought