Tornado Watch issued for some Tuesday afternoon

 

A TORNADO WATCH has been issued for Green, Rock, and Walworth counties until Midnight. Isolated severe storms have moved into southwest Wisconsin and will continue to move to the northeast late this afternoon. These will not impact our region in the short-term.

While there still remains an isolated thunderstorm risk through the evening, we continue to closely monitor the storms moving across central Iowa and northern Missouri. This is where our storm threat will come from later this evening. Remember, the storm window is from 6pm to 10pm Tuesday evening.

A TORNADO WATCH has been issued for a portion of northwest Illinois Tuesday afternoon, lasting until 9pm. This watch includes the following counties: Jo Daviess, Carroll, and Whiteside.

Storms have been slowly developing to our north and west this afternoon with a few of the storms quickly turning severe. Temperatures have warmed into the mid-80s area wide, with the low 80s north in Wisconsin. Dew point temperatures have also increased, rising into the low to mid 60s.

An isolated storm or two cannot be completely ruled out through the afternoon, but it does appear that our main window for severe storms will occur later in the evening. This will be with the storms that are starting to develop over eastern Nebraska and western Iowa.

These are expected to quickly turn severe as they move across Iowa. The tornado watch that is currently in effect is a PDS tornado watch - a Particularly Dangerous Situation. This means that the environment west of the Mississippi River is becoming very unstable and will allow storms to quickly evolve and turn severe, producing not only large hail and damaging wind gusts, but also a few intense, long-tracked tornadoes. The highest risk for this does appear to be in Iowa, but we'll be monitoring very closely any storms that try to cross over the Mississippi River.

It still does appear that our window for severe storms will occur later in the evening, moving from west to east as the storms in Iowa evolve into more of a line of storms. This would continue to bring the damaging threat locally after 6pm/7pm, as well as an isolated tornado risk. There are still some questions as to whether or not we see a damaging wind threat along the entire line of storms this evening, or a portion of the line. But severe storms will occur in our viewing area as we near sunset. It's likely we will see watches extended further east as we near evening. Make sure you are paying attention to the weather throughout the day.