Widespread rain, a few severe t’storms possible through Monday night

Finally – rain! Our first chance at some widespread rain across southern Nebraska and for us in Lincoln comes today (Monday, October 21st). There is a risk of severe weather with this rain chance as well.

We’ll start out mild and sunny before stronger winds develop and fire danger increases through the afternoon in southeast Nebraska. Then, showers and some thunderstorms will move in from the west by this evening.

Breaking down the timing of when and where, Stormcast shows storms first moving into southwest and central Nebraska from Kansas already Monday morning.

As daytime heating progresses with this system, we’ll see some stronger storms try to fire in south-central Nebraska by the afternoon. The better ingredients for organized, marginally severe storms will be west of Highway 77 and west of Lincoln.

With the latest update from the Storm Prediction Center, south-central Nebraska closer to the Kansas border has been upgraded to a Slight (Level 2 of 5) risk for severe weather. This is an update since our morning show today.

This set-up could be favorable for a few isolated tornadoes in the green-shaded area below in south-central Nebraska. The tornado threat cannot be ruled out with isolated storms in that area this afternoon and evening.

Some hail will be possible all the way east toward Fairbury and Hebron through the evening hours. Hail sizes could be up to nickel and quarter sizes with some larger hail possible closer to the Kansas border.

Gusty winds could be up to 60 mph with the strongest storms over a similar area shaded in brown below.

Most should expect rainfall amounts to be within 0.10-0.20″ by the time the rain ends early Tuesday morning. Up to a half inch looks more likely out toward the Tri-Cities. Those directly under thunderstorms can expect some locally higher amounts (and will be the lucky ones!).

The rest of the week will be fairly warm outside of a couple fronts pushing in some cooler air for Wednesday and Friday.

Meteorologist Jessica Blum 
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