Start of a stormy week

Hope you had a nice weekend and dodged the large hail that fell Sunday evening in central Kansas. We had just a couple baseball size hail reports, but there were some windshields knocked out because of it. There were several reports of 2 inch hail from Ellsworth county through Saline and Dickinson counties.

The weather for today looks very quiet across Kansas as we wait for the next weather feature to approach from the west. This system is well west of the Rockies this morning, but will be spreading east into Tuesday.

Lana Reinhart - Minneapolis

Salina hail

wall cloud - near Ellsworth - courtesy Kimbree Hopkins

Tuesday Severe Weather Setup:
There will likely be a warm front over northern Kansas in the morning. Chances for rain and some thunder look possible for a few areas along and north of I-70. These storms are not expected to be severe, but will probably have some heavy downpours and small hail.

A dryline is forecast to push into central Kansas by mid/late afternoon. This is the separation of dry air to the west and humid air to the east. That's one ingredient. The other will be some stronger winds coming into Kansas at roughly 20-25,000 feet. It's not very clear exactly when storms will fire up, but we are looking at 4 p.m. as a starting point, and any storm that fires up will quickly turn severe. We should have more than enough heating Tuesday afternoon to get the storms to develop. However, if the storms hold off until later in the evening (say, after 8 p.m.), then the chance for tornadoes may be somewhat diminished.

Be prepared for hail, high winds, and some tornadoes on Tuesday. It is certainly a day when you want to have a way of getting weather information. Don't rely on Facebook... the warnings are not very timely.

Late Week Storm:
There will be another storm coming into the Plains around Friday/Saturday. That system may produce some severe weather, along with chances for widespread, heavier rainfall for much of Kansas.