High pressure positioned off the Southeast Coast will promote sunny and calm weather across the Southeast over the next couple of days.

Southerners will be cleaning up for weeks following a devastating and massive severe weather outbreak across the region on Monday and Monday night. Fortunately, the weather will be quiet over the next couple of days to aid cleanup.

A total of 18 states were pummeled by severe weather on Monday and Monday night from Texas and Missouri to Maryland and northern Florida. There was a total of 1,347 storm reports, including over 1,000 wind reports, reports of large hail up to the size of baseballs and dozens of tornado reports.

Hundreds of thousands of customers lost power due to the high winds from the storms, and many others endured damage to their homes and businesses with some houses being severely damaged or leveled.

A large area of high pressure will remain anchored off the Southeast Coast over the next couple of days, providing calm, dry and sunny weather over much of the Southeast.

Temperatures will be seasonable with a southerly flow off the Gulf of Mexico. Highs will generally climb into the 70s and 80s across the South through Friday.

Storm reports from the Storm Prediction Center totaled 1,347 from 8 a.m. EST on Monday to 8 a.m. EST on Tuesday. While some tornadoes and damage reports have been confirmed, damage surveys will take a while to conduct.

After the atmosphere reloads, a new round of severe weather will erupt over portions of the central Plains on Thursday evening and overnight. Meteorologist Brian Edwards wrote on Tuesday that the ingredients will come together for severe storms to ignite over northeastern Oklahoma, eastern Kansas and western Missouri.

Thunderstorms will shift eastward during the day on Friday, reaching the Ohio and Tennessee valleys. While it is not out of the question for a few of these storms to become severe during the afternoon, it is not expected to be as widespread or as damaging an event as Monday’s.

A more potent round of thunderstorms may take shape over the Plains by the end of the weekend.

Some communities from the western Gulf Coast through central Florida were still cleaning up from a round of severe thunderstorms that struck at the end of March when Monday’s storms hit.

An EF-1 tornado touched down in Delacroix, La., on Wednesday, March 29, 2011. Damage from this tornado alone, including damage inflicted to some landmarks, was expected to take two to three weeks to repair before the historic April 4, 2011, severe storm outbreak led to more damage across Louisiana and much of the South. Cleanup could take well over a month.