The cause for storms Monday night, and the potential for storms late Tuesday

Last night, storms and heavy rain may have caught you by surprise. This was all due to a couple of unexpected storms that started in Kansas after growing and taking advantage of a very favorable environment. These three storms went on to be tornado-warned throughout the evening hours of Olathe and near Pleasanton, with two of them becoming confirmed tornadoes before crossing the Kansas-Missouri border. As they approached Central Missouri, they quickly became a wind and lightning risk, bringing heavy downpours by the time they reached Columbia and Jefferson City.

These unexpected storms happened because they were able to break through what is known as the cap. This feature has been present with the past couple of potentially severe weather days in Missouri, and it acts like a "lid" that keeps the majority of storms attempting to grow at bay. This is a warm layer of air in the low to mid-levels of the atmosphere that is over a colder layer of air at the surface. In a typical severe weather setup, the temperature would only be decreasing with height, but this warm layer limits the amount of vertical motion that can occur, so only the storms that have enough lift to break through it can reach their full potential. This typically happens on hotter days, like the ones that we have had yesterday and today, and it is something a meteorologist is always looking for when anticipating the potential for severe weather.

In the setup that was present last night and tonight, Gulf moisture is being ushered into Central Missouri, but there is a dry line that has been present over Kansas over the past couple of days that is causing noticeably lower dewpoints. This is causing a significant difference in air masses, and last night, this difference was enough to lift the storms through the cap, breaking it, allowing for storms to rapidly evolve. Tonight, the ABC 17 Stormtrack Weather Team is closely watching the threat of this cap breaking again before the main line of storms moves in overnight.

Similar to yesterday, the moisture and heat that are present are leading to a very energetic and unstable atmosphere. This is the reason why once storms began to develop, they quickly exploded and became severe, producing large hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes. This evening, instability will be high once again, but the chance of the cap breaking looks lower than yesterday. This means that when the main line of storms moves in, a lower amount of instability will be present, but it will still be more than enough for storms to strengthen into severe thresholds. If any isolated storms occur during the early evening hours, it would be a similar story to yesterday.

This is not the last of the severe weather threat, as there is another potential for strong to severe storms tomorrow. There will be a different potential limiting factor, that being lingering showers and storms during the morning hours, which would take away from the amount of instability or energy for storms to feed off of in the afternoon and evening hours.