Good Thursday Afternoon,
I wanted to provide a mid-day update on the potential for severe weather across Champaign County and surrounding portions of east-central Illinois this evening.
Today is certainly not an eye-popping severe weather parameter day, but I'm seeing a few things that have me at least somewhat concerned about the potential for scattered severe thunderstorms moving into our backyard on Thursday evening.
A warm front currently sits to our south (roughly St. Louis to Effingham) and will be surging north through the day. How far north this warm front gets will largely dictate the extent of our severe weather risk later today.
Currently, weather forecast models show the warm front surging northward into the Interstate 72 corridor from Springfield to Champaign by this evening. That would open the door to the potential for a cluster or line of storms to develop to our west and ride along the warm front into our area this evening.
Additionally, the warm front and the wind fields around it would elevate the amount of wind shear present such that even a line of thunderstorms that may more commonly be associated with damaging winds would have a slightly higher risk for embedded circulations and brief tornado touchdowns.
My more candid point is, while today may not go down as a high-end severe weather outbreak, there could be quite a few severe thunderstorm and/or tornado warnings in the area this evening.
My broader concern for now is that we may see a period from roughly 5 PM to 10 PM on Thursday evening where we're contending a line of storms that has the potential for damaging wind gusts and an embedded tornado risk. I'll be monitoring this potential into the afternoon and will let you know if things are trending up or down.
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