Tornado Risk Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky This Evening
May 01, 2012; 8:00 AM
LATEST:
5:05 p.m. CDT: A brief tornado touched down west of Sidney, Ill.
4:57 p.m. CDT: Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky: So far, there have been 2 tornado reports, hail close to the size of baseballs, a semi trailer blown over.
4:49 p.m. CDT: A tornado touch down in a farm field 4 miles southwest of Savoy, Ill., in Champaign County has been reported.
3:14 p.m. CDT: A brief tornado touched down west of Columbus, Ind.
As a disturbance rolls northeastward, a new round of storms will cross the Ohio Valley states into tonight.
The feature contributed to damaging thunderstorms, including a few tornadoes, over portions of Oklahoma and Kansas Monday night.
The main threat from the storms will be large hail, locally damaging wind gusts, frequent lightning strikes and urban flooding.
However, while an outbreak of tornadoes is not expected, a couple of the strongest storms could produce a brief tornado into this evening. All it takes is one tornado hitting a populated area to lead to a disaster.
As warmth surges in south of this area, the atmosphere will turn unstable enough to support locally damaging thunderstorms shifting eastward from Indianapolis, Ind.; Louisville and Lexington, Ky.; Dayton and Cincinnati, Ohio; and Huntington, W.Va.
Farther to the northwest, a separate zone of severe thunderstorms is forecast this evening from northern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin to portions of Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas.
At the very least the downpours and thunderstorms will cause travel delays and disruptions to outdoor plans.
People should be alert for rapidly changing weather conditions into tonight and seek shelter as the storms approach.
The Ohio and central Mississippi valleys will be on the edge of hot air pushing up from the south and cooler air oozing in from the north into the weekend. Disturbances (weak large-scale storm systems) will move along this zone. The atmospheric tug of war will lead to additional rounds of showers and locally severe thunderstorms.
Another such area of severe thunderstorms was affecting part of Virginia and North Carolina this evening.