Weather Alert Day: Tracking potential for hail and damaging winds Thursday evening
An ABC 17 Stormtrack Weather Alert Day has been issued for Thursday for the threat of storms with a potential for hail and damaging winds.
SETUP:
A traditional low with associated warm and cold fronts will set up over the region Wednesday and Thursday, before the cold front clears the region overnight Thursday into Friday morning. This will bring ingredients for severe storms into the region that may support potential for hail and damaging winds.
TIMING:
Storms ongoing late Wednesday night to our west may carry into the region with some steam after midnight tonight. These showers and storms Thursday morning will be actively weakening, but may keep clouds and light rain scattered through the region well into Thursday afternoon. Still, decent low level flow from the south will keep a steady supply of moisture and warmth and should recharge our atmosphere by the mid-afternoon.
Storms may pop up near the outflow of morning activity in the early afternoon, but this may be south of I-44, and miss much of our region. A better shot at storms developing will be near the cold front, which will likely be near our northern most counties. These currently look like our best shot at severe storms even though they may develop later in the evening. Of course, there's always the chance we see more rogue development somewhere in between.
The questionable part of all of this is where storms develop, but the concern is that the environment will support severe weather develops.
This could be a near miss for many of us as well, where we find ourselves sandwiched in between the two separate rounds of storms. A scenario where storms develop south of mid-Missouri in the early afternoon, and then struggle to develop along the cold front amid some weaker lift, we could miss out on severe weather.
IMPACTS:
Our primary concern with Thursday's storms will be for hail and damaging wind, but there will be a slim chance for tornadoes that cannot be ruled out.
