A cold front will sweep east across the state Wednesday and Thursday and could be the focus for development of several rounds of strong to severe thunderstorms.
This graphic from the National Weather Service in Springfield shows what forecasters there are concerned about for Thursday.
National Weather Service meteorologist Chris Bowman tells Missourinet the first storms associated with that front are anticipated late Tuesday night in western Kansas and eastern Missouri.
“That’s going to set the stage for the Wednesday storms,” says Bowman. “Those storms will move away and then set the stage for another round of storms a little bit further east on Thursday.”
The primary threats with these storms will be damaging winds and hail, though there is the potential for tornadoes as well.
“The biggest tornado threat’s going to be over northeastern Kansas and northwestern Missouri, Wednesday,” says Bowman. “The threat for tornadoes looks a little bit lower on Thursday mainly just because it looks like a different mode of convection,” says Bowman. He says expected for Thursday is, “more a line of storms, as opposed to individual supercells on Wednesday.”
Rainfall projections are for two to three inches of rain to fall in some areas, which Bowman says could lead to localized flooding, but widespread flooding is not anticipated.
For National Weather Service information for your area, visit these NWS pages.
In northwest and western Missouri: Kansas City (Pleasant Hill)
In northeast and eastern Missouri: St. Louis
In southwest Missouri: Springfield
In southeast Missouri: Paducah, KY
Scotland and Clark counties: Davenport, IA