Another beautiful afternoon ahead of us again today though winds will be a bit on the breezy side by this afternoon. Expecting a mix of clouds and sun with highs back in the lower 70s. South winds will gust to around 30 miles per hour at times, still a decent afternoon though!
Tonight moisture will be on the increase along with clouds as a warm front approaches the area. A few scattered showers and storms will likely develop late during the overnight hours. Lows will be mild near 60 degrees.
Wednesday continues to serve up quite a complicated forecast in terms of our severe weather potential. Newer data suggests that the environment over our area is becoming less conductive to a more dangerous scenario that would produce widespread severe weather over the area Wednesday afternoon and evening.
A slight risk of severe weather is in place for extreme western portions of the area while a marginal risk exists for the remainder of the area.
Several factors that will determine where severe thunderstorms may form Wednesday afternoon include the placement of the surface warm front, which is currently positioned a bit further south compared to previous model runs, the influence of an easterly fetch of much cooler and more stable air off Lake Michigan to our east, and the ability to clear out morning showers and storms in order to destabilize the atmosphere over the region. Current data suggests that we’ll be plagued with not only showers and storms in the morning, but plenty of cloud cover in the afternoon as well. The timing and arrival of a low pressure system into the region has also been variable over the last several runs and also has impacts on storm mode and timing.
The general consensus as of this morning is a large complex of thunderstorms developing to the west of the area in parts of Iowa and moving eastward during the evening hours carrying with it the threats for large hail, damaging winds, and perhaps an isolated tornado or two if the system interacts with the aforementioned warm front in the area. Heavy rainfall is also likely with this complex as it works with abnormally high moisture levels for this time of year.
Details regarding Wednesday will still be changing as we head through the afternoon hours so keep tabs on further updates to the forecast over the next 24 hours as details become more clear.
