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SETUP

A shortwave trough in the upper levels will bring a storm system through mid-Missouri on Wednesday. This will bring widely scattered thunderstorms through the morning and afternoon.

Available to this system will be plenty of wind shear in the atmosphere. Essentially, high wind speeds and differences in wind speeds will be suitable to help drive and sustain thunderstorms. What is relatively lacking from this setup will be storm energy. Also called instability, we will have just enough of this storm energy to sustain a limited severe weather threat with Wednesday's storms. This what will have confidence in the forecast for severe weather rather low, despite a high confidence in overall thunderstorm activity.

IMPACTS

Severe impacts will be limited due to the setup of this event, but the most likely threat of severe weather will be damaging winds.

Also possible will be severe hail, but confidence is lesser that hail will develop in Wednesday's environment.

Tornadoes will be a non-zero threat, meaning Wednesday's environment may be capable of supporting a weak and short lived tornado, but the likelihood of one developing is very low.

The most common impact Wednesday will be rain, thunder, and convective storms dropping large raindrops. In some areas this may bring as much as an inch and a half of rain, and lead to some localized flooding.

TIMING

Showers will start as soon as midnight for some, but the main line of thunderstorms we are tracking will march through during the mid-to-late morning, lasting into the early afternoon.

Download the ABC17 Stormtrack Weather App to track storms along with us Wednesday morning.