Insider Blog: Heavy rain and isolated strong winds possible overnight
The first round of showers and storms that brought heavy rain to Mid-Missouri Friday afternoon have exited to the east, leaving us with a quiet Friday evening. Temperatures remain in the lower 60s with cloud cover sticking around for much of the area.
We're keeping a close eye on a strong low pressure system out over the Plains that will push a cold front in our direction overnight. Ahead of this front, severe storms could fire up around sunset in Kansas and southern Nebraska. This is where the highest severe weather threat will be tonight, with a level 4 out of 5 severe weather risk in effect from the Storm Prediction Center. Locations in the moderate and enhanced risk areas will have the potential of seeing damaging winds, hail larger than quarter size, and a few tornadoes.
The threat will then shift to a predominantly strong winds late tonight as the front surges into far eastern Kansas and western Missouri. Damaging winds are possible in the Kansas City metro area around midnight, and the line will push into Mid-Missouri for counties along Highway 65 between 1:00 and 2:00 a.m. This corridor is where we could still see a few severe wind gusts, but the line of storms will be running into a less favorable environment for sustaining severe-level threats.
Storms are expected to weaken as they track east overnight, but will still bring the potential for isolated strong winds between 40-50 mph and heavy rain. Columbia and Jefferson City can expect storms to arrive between 3:00 and 4:00 a.m.
Showers and storms will clear the area between 6:00 and 8:00 a.m. to the east, where the severe weather shifts to locations along and east of the Mississippi River.
The rest of the weekend will be dry and breezy with temperatures making the lower 70s. Rain amounts will top out around 2" between Friday afternoon and Saturday morning's storms.
Make sure you have a way to get alerts overnight if there happens to be a warning issued for your area. Download the ABC 17 Stormtrack Weather app and set it to your location to get those warnings sent right to your device.
