Dangerous But Uncertain Storm Chances for Missouri & Illinois

I was hesitant to even share details about the severe storm chances for Missouri and Illinois Tuesday due to the extreme uncertainty about what will happen. There very much is a dangerous weather situation developing, but it will all depend on a handful of factors if anything serious happens at all.

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First, let's look at the NOAA Storm Prediction Center map with the convective outlook for April 4, 2023. Notice there are two locations in the moderate areas with one covering the immediate Hannibal, Missouri/Quincy, Illinois area and the other in southern Missouri and northern Arkansas.

Here's a key discussion from the National Weather Service about what might happen Tuesday afternoon into Wednesday morning:

As it currently stands, it appears that any threat will occur in at least two waves. The first will be Tuesday afternoon and early evening in northeast Missouri and west-central Illinois, where we may see some modest height falls that sufficiently erode the inversion to allow for free convection. In this environment, any discrete convection will contain threats of strong tornadoes, very large hail, and damaging wind.

What they're saying is the Hannibal/Quincy area may be an area where skies clear allowing these storms to explode. Translation? If it becomes very sunny early Tuesday afternoon and you start to see clouds expand quickly, that means trouble is likely brewing in the atmosphere.

On the other hand, if it remains cloudy for most of Tuesday afternoon, very little severe weather may occur. There will still possibly be some severe storms developing overnight Tuesday into Wednesday even if clouds prevent Tuesday afternoon storms.

The bottom line is please pay attention and be aware that weather and storms will be very changeable throughout the day and night on Tuesday. Let's hope this is a non-event and not a repeat (or worse) of Friday, March 31, 2023 when more than 130 confirmed tornadoes took more than 30 lives.