Tracking strong storms early Wednesday
TONIGHT: Mostly cloudy with lows in the low 60s. Showers and storms move in well after midnight. Some could bring heavy rain and strong winds.
TOMORROW: Scattered storms early, becoming stronger into late morning. Some storms could bring damaging winds, large hail, and a few tornadoes, especially east of Highway 63. Temperatures falling into the upper 40s by late afternoon.
EXTENDED: We continue to have plenty of fuel for storms to work with but no trigger to force them up until late tonight/early tomorrow morning when we lose a little bit of this instability. Storms are expected to fire up across parts of Iowa and Kansas tonight, and move in our direction well after midnight. The timing looks less favorable for severe weather with the storms along the front losing strength over Mid-Missouri before daybreak, but the threat could quickly ramp up by mid-morning as temperatures continue to rise along with unstable air ahead of the front. The highest threat will be along and east of Highway 63 between 9:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. After that the severe weather threat shifts east and makes for a bad rush hour in St. Louis. We may dodge a bullet in central Missouri with the front coming through in the morning. If it slows down at all, we may be in for more trouble. Behind the front, we'll rapidly cool into the upper 40s to around 50 by late afternoon. Skies clear out by Thursday morning with lows in the mid-30s, but we warm back to near 60. A weak front moves through on Friday, bringing a chance for a shower or two but temperatures remain near average in the upper 60s. The weekend will bring a chance of rain, more likely on Easter Sunday. Some bad news for the spring lovers; we'll dip back into a cold pattern by the end of the weekend into next week with lows in the upper 30s and highs in the 50s.