***UPDATED AT 10:50 AM***

Good morning everyone. As some of you know the Storm Prediction Center has shifted the moderate risk northward into the area. I am currently examining data and will have a detailed post in the coming hour. The placement of the warm front will be key to our severe weather chances as well as the amount of moisture. Stay tuned and I will get to your questions this morning as soon as I am finished with the post.

Josh

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Good afternoon and evening bloggers. Thanks for checking in today. A big thank you to the students at John C. Thomas Elementary School in Nixa who invited me out for a school visit about severe weather safety. They were a great group of kids and I hope they invite me back yesterday. And who knew that we have quite the blog following at Thomas. I was able to meet a few regular bloggers and really enjoyed myself!

The weather picture for tomorrow is not really all that clear cut and is not a classic severe weather setup by any means, but it looks as if the southern portions of our viewing area (i.e. northern Arkansas) could see a rather active severe weather day tomorrow.

First though, tonight looks pleasant as temperatures drop into the lower 50s after a fairly mild evening depending on where you are. Look at the temperature difference between northern Arkansas/southern Missouri and areas to the north!

Tomorrow we will start out with scattered clouds across the area. Here is the expected surface setup in the central part of the US.

Showers and thunderstorms will form along and north of the warm front, near the low, and along the cold front. Instability is very limited north of the warm front (generally areas north of Highway 60) but it should be sufficient enough for severe thunderstorm development after 1 PM tomorrow across most of southern Missouri. Notice the arae of greatest instability (in excess of 3,000) is centered across southeast Oklahoma.

My main concern lies with what may happen in northern Arkansas. Much of Arkansas will be in the warm sector and will also have sufficient amounts of shear for supercell thunderstorm formation. Much of Arkansas is in a moderate risk and very large hail, damaging winds, and tornadoes will be possible.

It's an interesting scenario and we'll see how the mesoscale affects play out tomorrow. Again, severe weather is possible areawide, but primarily across northern Arkansas. I'll have an update very late tomorrow morning and I'll be updating the blog throughout the afternoon. If severe weather does develop we'll also open the chat. Feel free to ask questions in the blog tonight and I'll get to them as soon as I can.

Josh deBerge