Storm Threat for Half of Missouri This Week, But a Wildcard Looms

It's the start of another work week and there's already a warning from weather forecasters that at least half of Missouri will face a storm threat later this week, but there is a wildcard that will affect how bad (or not) it gets.

I have learned my lesson from last week. It was one week ago that meteorologists warned that a storm threat was likely at the end of the week, but there were factors that might limit it. Those limits went away later in the week and Missouri was hit with a big tornado outbreak with dozens of warnings across the state on Friday. Today, the NOAA Storm Prediction Center has issued another advisory for parts of Missouri for Thursday. It shows the western half of Missouri under an increased chance of severe weather development.

What's the wildcard that could limit the storms?

Digital meteorologist Ryan Hall says that there might be a cap of warm air in place that might limit the storms to being isolated events Thursday afternoon. "Might" is the key word. It's worth emphasizing that a cap looked like it would be in place late last week, but dissipated allowing the storms to explode. That could happen again this week.

Ryan mentions in his forecast that he expects two events Thursday. The first will be thunderstorms and possibly even supercells Thursday afternoon. Then, overnight Thursday those storms could merge into a squall line bringing 70 to 80 mph winds to parts of Missouri along a line from St. Louis to as far north as Davenport.

But wait, there's more

The Storm Prediction Center says the storm energy will reload on Friday bringing another severe storm chance to southern Missouri. It's entirely possible that Friday's storms could be even stronger than Thursday.

It's been a wild Spring already and the pattern doesn't seem to be calming down anytime soon. We had two funnel clouds go over our home late last week and that was two too many for my tastes. Let's hope that cap stays in place this week to limit the severe storms development. If it doesn't, we'll likely see a similar situation play out near the end of this week just like we did last.