How atmospheric capping can lead to storm start time delays

Mid-Missouri sees a decent amount of energy in the environment this evening/ tonight according to the instability tracker with higher values back towards Kansas City. Storm start times are looking to primarily exists after midnight Monday night due to an atmospheric CAP in place.

So what exactly is a cap? Well, it's a thing that prevents the storms from actually growing. Typically, a CAP is seen as warmer air into the mid-levels in the environment.

Towards the surface, the environment has rising motions due to warmer air temperatures from the sun heating the earth's surface. The air in the mid-levels for the atmospheric CAP is even warmer than the surface temperatures.

It's important to remember that warmer air is less dense, so it's going to rise. That means the slightly cooler surface temperatures underneath that warmer air can't continue to feed that storm growth since it is less dense.

To erode an atmospheric CAP, the environment has to have to find a way to either increase the surface temperatures or cool the warmer mid-level air temperatures. Cooling of the mid-level layers in the atmospheric can typically happen if rain falls through that layer leading to a slight cooldown. Once that happens, it's going to allow the atmosphere to tap into the actual storm growth, and we'll continue to see those strong severe chances grow like what we're expecting to see into the later overnight hours.

Make sure you have a way to receive and be woken up by weather alerts in case any strong to severe storms come through your area.