Forecast: Storms Tonight, Heat Persists

The Storm Prediction Center has placed western Iowa under a slight risk for severe weather this evening and tonight, as a feature called a mesoscale convective vortex rolls into western Iowa. This is basically a small area of low pressure that began yesterday as an organized area of storms to our west. It has been kicking off storms in northwest Iowa today as I type this.

We’ll see a round of storms move into central Iowa late this afternoon and early evening, then another area of storms move in later tonight. Both could include gusty winds, hail and heavy rain. The evolution of those storms is shown in the 3 images below.

The HRRR model’s forecast, below, shows that we may have organized updrafts in these storms, increasing our severe risk.

These storms will depart by mid-morning Monday, leaving us with a hot day and a heat advisory for southwest Iowa from 1-8PM.

I have left thunderstorm chances out of Tuesday’s forecast for now, as I think it’ll be too hot aloft to get much going. Storm chances will move back in late Wednesday, into Thursday and maybe even early Friday morning. Colorado State’s severe weather algorithm, below, shows that we may see a stronger storm or two late Wednesday.

The evolution of our midweek storm chances, courtesy of the European computer model, is shown in the three images below.

Turning to temperatures, we stay on the hot side of things into the weekend:

…and the extended outlooks, below, look to keep us in above-average temperatures.

Your WHO13 7-day forecast:

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