The National Weather Service in Paducah, Kentucky, is warning of a chance of severe thunderstorms across the area Thursday afternoon and Thursday night.
The NWS is forecasting the possibility of a line of strong to severe convection moving east-southeast into the area Thursday afternoon and moving southeast Thursday night. Damaging winds will be the most likely hazard, but a brief spin-up tornado could develop and marginally severe hail is possible. While very heavy rainfall will likely occur with stronger storms, if isolated flooding issues develop, they should be short-lived.
The Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma, has Poplar Bluff under an enhanced risk (category 3) for severe weather Thursday along with much of Southeast Missouri. The southeastern part of southeast Missouri, including Neelyville, Qulin, Bernie, Campbell, Sikeston and the Bootheel, is under a slight (Category 2) risk.
Pat Spoden, a meteorologist with the NWS in Paducah, said an enhanced risk of severe weather means a wider breadth of severe storms is possible in the area.
“We’re looking for numerous severe storms across the area,” Spoden said. “We are looking for more persistent thunderstorms, more widespread. That’s really the category change going from slight to enhanced — not quite as widespread with a slight risk but with an enhanced risk, we’re expecting kind of a wider breadth of severe storms.
“With that enhanced risk, (we are) looking at a pretty large area that basically goes from west Texas into southwest Illinois. In that area, conditions are ripe for severe storms to develop tomorrow afternoon and well into the evening in some areas.”
However, there still is a lot of uncertainty as to what will play out.
“There’s still a lot of different signals that we’re getting as to exactly when it’s going to occur, where the storms are going to be and it’s kind of been this way for a day or two,” Spoden said. “We look at a lot of different numerical models and stuff — and of course, they don’t all agree as to exactly what’s going to happen. When everything comes together and they all agree, we have a lot of confidence, but in this case, we’re not seeing that super agreement.”
With severe weather a possibility, it is wise to remember to check the batteries on weather radios and make sure that cell phones can receive weather warnings if and when severe weather is approaching.