Mid Morning Weather Update

12:15 Update:  Severe Thunderstorm Watch will likely be issued for the remaining viewing area for this afternoon.

11:30 Update: All of the WTVO viewing audience is now under a moderate risk for severe weather.  Damaging winds will be the primary threat with these storms.

Storms to continue to develop around the Des Moines area this morning and will rapidly move east through the rest of the morning and afternoon.  The sunshine that we are experiencing now will help to fuel the storms as they move into the Stateline.  The atmosphere is just so that storms will continue to form into linear segments with bow echos along the leading edge.  The biggest threat as these storms move through will be significant wind damage.  Already starting to see reports out of Iowa with winds up to 70 mph!  While hail isn't too much of a threat since temperatures are relatively warm aloft, there is a lot of instability so we can't rule it out.  Tornado threat seems to be limited due to the lack of shear, but there may be a spin up, short lived tornado along the leading edge of the storms.  This is going to be a case where it looks nice out right now and with the quick nature of the storms the weather will turn ugly in a short amount of time.  Timing of the storms looks to be around 2pm; give or take an hour.   We'll continue to monitor things in the weather center so be sure to keep checking back!