After a fairly mild weather period, more active weather is on the return to the area. An elevated risk of severe weather exists for both today and Tuesday with a marginal risk on Monday. Although it is not expected to be widespread or significant, the possibility of isolated strong-to-severe storms will still exist, and you should pay attention to the weather over the next several days.
Showers and thunderstorms is expected to remain ongoing later this morning across the Plains and Upper Mississippi Valley. South of the outflow boundaries associated with these storms, daytime heating is expected to result in scattered storm development across Nebraska, Minnesota, western Wisconsin, and northwestern Iowa. Some of these storms may be locally strong-to-severe, primarily along a very narrow corridor where buoyancy aloft will be best (mainly Sioux City through Spencer in Iowa). Nothing widespread is expected, however an isolated severe cell here and there can not be ruled out, with the primary threats being damaging winds and heavy rain.
On Monday, the majority of the severe weather should remain west of the area in Nebraska, Kansas, and Colorado, where afternoon heating will lead to the atmosphere destabilizing with large hail and damaging winds being the primary threats. Some of these storms may make it into our western counties, but this is a very marginal threat. However, an isolated strong thunderstorm cannot be ruled out, with small hail and gusty winds the primary threats.
A potentially bigger, but very uncertain threat will exist for Tuesday. It’s important to note that we will have several rounds of thunderstorms before Tuesday and this plays a gigantic factor into the next days forecast (similar to a domino effect). There’s some uncertainties about today’s and tomorrow’s storms alone, and that carries on over to Tuesday. There are also some synoptic issues that will need to be sorted out before a better idea will be had of what’s going to happen. The current idea right now is that thunderstorms will be ongoing Tuesday morning and things should re-fire in the afternoon. Models do not have a good handle on this, with the GFS suggesting development along a cold front that will be draped from Iowa into Kansas, while the NAM believes things will be along leftover outflow boundaries further east (this would decrease the threat as it is in more stable air).
More details on Tuesday will be available in the coming days when things become more clear. Nonetheless, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to keep an eye on the weather. Stay tuned for the latest updates!