Decreased Severe Threat

Thanks to an early morning round of rain and storms, the threat for seeing severe weather this afternoon has diminished. The morning storms have disrupted a key mechanism to generate severe weather, instability. In the absence of rain this morning, the atmosphere would be in the process of becoming unstable...heat and humidity building near the ground, while colder and drier air sits up above us. As storms develop, that heat and humidity near the ground is pulled up into the atmosphere to fuel the storms and the colder air from aloft is brought down to the ground (which is why it always cools off significantly when a storm moves through).

The morning storms have stirred up the atmosphere in most of the area. After that mixing, it takes some time for that instability to re-establish itself, and that likely is not going to occur to the degree that it would have had we not already had a round of storms move through.

A strong storm or 2 remains possible through this evening, with some locally gusty wind, small hail and torrential downpours possible, but no significant or widespread severe weather is expected.