Missouri & Illinois Suddenly in Danger Zone for Weekend Storms

What looked to be a regular series of thunderstorms making their way across the Midwest this weekend now suddenly looks dangerous as NOAA forecasters have placed both Missouri and Illinois in the danger zone for explosive storm development.

I was stunned when I checked NOAA's Storm Prediction Center convective outlook this morning and saw a huge enhanced warning area encompassing much of Missouri and Illinois.

Here are the exact words of the advisory from NOAA:

"Very large hail, damaging winds, and strong tornadoes are expected."

If you read their meteorologist discussion, there's a lot of technical weather stuff they dig into, but the bottom line is this. The environment Sunday afternoon will be favorable for supercell development. Along that front will be large hail possibilities. While some storms could happen during the morning hours of Sunday, it's later in the day you need to watch out for.

At the very least, you will see strong winds, lightning and significant hail. If the storms are spinning, strong tornadoes are a definite possibility.

My concern is this storm threat has been escalating the further we've gotten into this week. That could mean for another dangerous weekend of damaging winds and now likely significant tornadoes.

Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.