Severe Weather Not Bad Now...But More Coming Later

Only two watches now and only a handful of warnings scattered across the severe risk areas at this time. However, the sun is out and is destabilizing the atmosphere in the threat areas at this time, and it is only a matter of time before storms start exploding from Wisconsin to Minnesota down to Texas to Arkansas. There are two tornado watches as of 2:45 EDT. One along the dry line for far western KS, OK and TX. Instability continues to build and there is a bit of a jet streak moving across that area, so storms will continue to pop in that watch through the afternoon and evening with a tornado, high wind, and hail threat. For the other watch there is some convergence in that area adding lift. That lifting mechanism (MCV) will only cause storms to fire faster the rest of the afternoon/evening, as it is very unstable in that area. The MCV could enhance the tornado threat in that area. So, I believe that area will see high wind/hail threats with the threat of a few tornadoes also. There is another area that will likely be put under a tornado watch by 3 or 4PM EDT. From Iowa into Minnesota. There is strong wind shear in that area, and instability is growing. It appears that as of 2:45PM EDT storms are getting ready to fire in western MN. With all the wind shear, any storms are going to quickly become severe, with hail, high winds, and tornadoes all being distinct threats. If I had to bet money I would say most of the tornadoes will come out of this region. Elsewhere along the front, Kansas, there is a severe threat because instability is extreme. However, wind shear is not that high. So for Kansas I think storms will develop with hail and high winds being the biggest threats, with isolated tornadoes being possible. Later this evening the whole package will shift east some. The biggest severe threat will be from eastern MN/NE IA/NW IL where the strongest shear will be. Tornadoes and strong winds will be the biggest threats here. It looks like this activity may organize into a MCS later tonight in WI/northern IL and blast east. The dry line in Texas/OK/KS will move east a little, but not too much. The severe threat there will continue through the evening but slowly diminish as the sun goes down in that area. The activity along the rest of the cold front in KS will shift east into MO, with a continues high wind/hail threat along with maybe an isolated tornado. The MCV will continue to bring a severe threat for southern MO/NW AR/eastern OK the rest of this afternoon. This feature will likely become less defined this evening. I will have another update in a few hours to discuss the severe threat.