Severe Weather Potential: Feb. 9

It is not very often for Iowa that you will be able to get the month of February and severe weather, let alone tornadoes, all in the same sentence. That is the case today as a potent storm system works' its' way up northeast through the central and northern plains. This dynamic system has very strong winds at both the lower and mid-levels which is creating significant speed and directional shear. This shear combined with fairly warm and moist low levels compared to climatology, and the cold air that is located in the mid-levels will allow for some instability. While this instability is expected to be fairly weak (<500 J/kg), it should still be enough for thunderstorms and a few severe ones at that.

With the lack of time, just a few brief notes from tonight's model runs shows good agreement and overlap between the strong shear, good vorticity maximum at 500mb, along with appreciable LI's and good 0-3 km CAPE. This combination may yield low-topped supercells across parts of eastern Kansas, northern Missouri, far eastern Nebraska and into western Iowa. With the chance of clouds and showers previous to the afternoon, the forecast is quite delicate still. However, it does appear that areas in Iowa south of Highway 30 and west of Highway 63 will see the potential for these low-topped supercells. These storms may be capable of strong winds and moderate hail, but will also likely be rotating and may produce tornadoes. Several factors will have to come together for this event, but it is something that parts of the state should keep an eye on.

Other parts of the state may still see thunderstorms, however, with weaker instability these storms are not likely to reach severe limits. Some small hail and gusty winds is still possible throughout much of the state during the afternoon and early evening hours.

Additional severe weather forecast updates are likely in the mid-morning hours...