AccuWeather's Severe Weather Expert Guy Pearson reports on the building storms in the Midwest that are expected to bring strong wind gusts and hail.
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00:00Joining me right now is AccuWeather Severe Weather Expert Guy Pearson from our Severe Weather State Center in Wichita, Kansas.
00:07And, you know, Guy, before we talk about what's going to happen this afternoon,
00:11I've actually been waiting for these thunderstorms in Minnesota to start getting very close to being warned for wind and hail.
00:22Nothing yet, but boy, they seem to be getting better organized, don't they?
00:26Yeah, good morning. They do seem like they're getting better organized this morning.
00:33You know, we've got all the main ingredients right there is sort of the boundary here is lifting north,
00:38but it's helping to drive these storms.
00:40You know, we are seeing some indications within that.
00:44There may be certainly some gusty winds and probably some smaller size hail at the moment.
00:49It's trying to build and we get every pocket here or there and it starts to intensify a little bit,
00:54but then nothing really to sustain it to really get us to large hail or severe wind speeds as of yet.
01:01All right, let's play this forward here.
01:03The other thing that's impressive, and you can see how much energy we have,
01:06is because when you track these thunderstorms, Guy, look how fast they move.
01:11I stopped this two hours from now and they're already north of Minneapolis.
01:17Then they move across northern Wisconsin.
01:19Then we look to the west, and this should be the beginning of the severe weather, right, later on this morning.
01:28That is correct.
01:29We get this initial push out of the way.
01:31We get some breaks in the clouds as part of that boundary riding north,
01:36also clearing things out from the cloud perspective, get that sunshine back in there,
01:41and then really help that instability and extra energy that we need from the surface.
01:47So then as the main line itself comes out and the main piece of energy,
01:51then that two together then fires this main line that we'll see across southern Minnesota and Iowa here late this morning,
01:58but mainly this afternoon and into the evening hours.
02:01What do you see when you see this future radar?
02:03I see a line of thunderstorms, but these look alternatic to me, Guy.
02:11Yeah, I mean, they're sort of segmented out just enough to where the inflow into each storm can maintain itself,
02:18to where instead of, you know, we've talked about linear in the past where everything goes all at once,
02:23and then you don't have that airflow that's able to, you know, keep particular storms or supercells going long enough
02:31to where we potentially get those long-track tornadoes that we're potentially talking about today
02:36or, you know, the number of tornadoes as well.
02:39So those individual discrete cells or breaks in the line even to where you get good inflow on the southern parts of those,
02:46those are the areas that you're going to want to be concerned with as you get into later this afternoon and this evening.
02:52I've been talking about this, that, you know, having a high risk in Minneapolis isn't necessarily rare,
02:59but it's early to be talking about a high risk.
03:03Here we are late April, all the way north into the Twin Cities.
03:10Yeah, certainly, you know, typically their best time for tornadoes is actually closer to later May,
03:16probably the beginning of June.
03:18But, you know, Mother Nature doesn't always work on the same calendar every year,
03:22and so we're looking at, you know, the whole storm system itself being farther north.
03:26We've had all the ingredients.
03:28I mean, I was taking a look at the low-level clouds here in Wichita this morning,
03:31and they were streaming from south to north.
03:34It was quite humid already here yesterday to begin with,
03:36and so that moisture has continued to feed, you know, farther north another 12 to 18 to 24 hours
03:42by the time we get to this afternoon,
03:44and all that moisture and energy is going to be pushed up to the north here in this area.
03:49So while it's not the normal time frame, all the ingredients are there,
03:54and we need everybody to make sure you're paying attention later today and this evening.
03:59AccuWeather Severe Weather Expert, Guy Pearson.
04:01Again, thanks for joining us here.