Severe Weather Update

Well, we have lots of severe weather going on right now.  There is a watch out, but right now there are also many mesoscale discussions out too, which could lead to the issuance of a watch.  First, we have severe thunderstorm watch #679:

What we are watching right now is the clusters of thunderstorms currently ongoing.  One in particular is severe thunderstorm warned just south of Des Moines.  First, we are going to look at a radar reflectivity image of the cell:

We can see the warning on it covers the main precipitation core and a possible hook.  Thus the threats for this storm look to be mainly winds and hail here, and the warning's text backs that up.  Let's take a look at the best volume scanner image I could find using GR2Analyst:

I used this color filter for a combination of a cool effect and so that we could see every successive layer of this particular thunderstorm.  First, the green outlines the general shape of the storm.  Once we get down to the reds though, we are looking at the heavier rains, and possibly small hail.  The red is generally what we look at for potential downbursts and tornadoes.  This storm will likely not produce a tornado at the time of the post.  And then we can notice the small core of pink inside the red on the left side of the image.  Because it is taller than the red line, we can expect this to be a suspended hail core.  Due to the small size, I really only expect hail up to around quarter size.  As we get later in the period, we are going to become worried about a cluster of thunderstorms to develop in the watch area, with more widespread severe weather possible.  We are also watching for the potential of a severe thunderstorm watch going up across this area:

It is because of a few thunderstorms that have developed that may become a cluster of thunderstorms capable of at least isolated wind and hail damage.  Other than this, we don't see any more organized severe weather areas.  However, there is some convection that may be producing at least short lived severe weather:

We'll also closely monitor this.  Shear across this region is slightly higher than originally forecast, so at least some degree of organization may be achieved/maintained.  Stay tuned!