SHREVEPORT, La. – Severe weather has returned to the forecast for parts of the Mississippi Valley this weekend, an unwelcome sight for an area that is still picking up the pieces from a deadly tornado outbreak just last week.

While this weekend’s weather system is expected to relatively minor by spring severe weather season standards and pale in comparison to the monster thunderstorms that brought at least 110 tornadoes and over 1,000 reports of storm damage across the Plains and South from March 14-16, it’s still posing a dangerous threat.

Available atmospheric moisture is forecast to increase considerably over the southern Plains, as a potent upper-level disturbance dives quickly southeastward across the central U.S. by late Saturday evening.

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“You’re going to have the majority of (Saturday), which really is going to be pretty nice,” said FOX Weather Meteorologist Kendall Smith. “So if your kiddos have any ballgames or you happen to do some yard work, you’re all right.”

But thunderstorms will begin to fire in Kansas and Oklahoma by the afternoon and will increase in intensity as the system moves into Missouri overnight Saturday into Sunday morning.

A low-end Level 1 threat of severe weather covers much of Missouri and eastern Kansas on Saturday, including Kansas City, Springfield and the western suburbs of St. Louis. It also includes the town of Rolla, which was heavily damaged by an EF-2 tornado on Friday – one of 18 tornadoes confirmed so far in Missouri from the outbreak.

“And unfortunately, what’s not going to help out the recovery process is the rounds of active weather that we have that will be underway,” said FOX Weather Meteorologist Kendall Smith.

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The tornado risk is minimal, but hail up to quarter-sized or larger and wind gusts to 60 mph are possible.

Severe weather threat increases for Sunday

The storm system will find a better atmospheric environment conducive for severe storm development as it heads into the southern Mississippi Valley and Ark-La-Tex region on Sunday.

“The (storm’s) dive to the south, it’s going to scoop up more moisture,” says FOX Weather Meteorologist Britta Merwin. “Afternoon temperatures across the south will easily be pushing 80 degrees. That’s enough to get those thunderstorms popping late in the day.”

Here, NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center has maintained a Level 2 out of 5 threat for severe weather for just over 4 million people, stretching from Memphis, Tennessee, across northern Mississippi, through Shreveport, Louisiana and back into eastern Texas, though Dallas looks in the clear.

The greatest threat is for damaging wind gusts of 60 mph or higher, with some potential for quarter-sized hail.

“We will have cold air aloft, meaning that that will allow for these raindrops to be sent well up into the atmosphere. And then they are going to cool and unfortunately come down as large hailstones at times,” Smith said. “So make sure that you’re taking those precautions. You’re parking your car in your garage or under the carport.”

The overall tornado threat looks to be low; however, a tornado or two will be possible given the amount of wind shear and updraft strength.

“All of the ingredients in the atmosphere are there,” says FOX Weather Meteorologist Michael Estime. “We have the moisture, the lift, the instability. Not as much in the way of wind shear — that’s a change of wind direction with height. Sometimes storms like to tap into that change of wind direction with height and pull that circulation down to the surface. We don’t have a whole lot of that on Sunday. So I think our risk for tornadoes is going to be a little smaller, but not zero.”

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But again, those were also among the areas still dealing with the physical and emotional scars from the tornado outbreak.

“And I will say that is the hardest thing when you’ve been through something traumatic,” Merwin said. “And then you hear that first rumble of thunder or you get that first weather alert on your phone. It brings you right back to that moment, especially when you’re only a week removed.”