04/26/2026
Please stay aware and be safe. Timeframe is 2 to 10 PM as of right now.
🚨 DANGEROUS SEVERE WEATHER LIKELY TOMORROW 🚨
Good morning everyone. We having been working around the clock this morning instead of preparing our BBQ for today to keep y’all safe and informed. Things don’t look good and it’s time to forecast the bad.
Unfortunately, put simply, our forecast remains constant and continues to look very ugly. The data rolling in has a lot of eye popping characteristics of a moderate to high-level severe impact event particularly for counties along the Missouri River and Mississippi Rivers, Near the STL and Points North and East over into Illinois. That does NOT mean our southern regions do not see severe because some will. There will however be a sharp western cutoff which Tim will outline in greater detail tonight. We are just highlighting a more primed area. In fact, we would be surprised if we don’t see another significant upgrade by the SPC putting parts of our region in a Level 4/5 in terms of more extreme severity.
As we’ve stated, the morning storms do not look to be an issue as the atmosphere should have plenty of recovery time. What that means is it’s gonna prime itself for some very severe supercells. CAPE, Lapse Rates, EHI’s, Supercell Index, Significant Tornado Parameter and Helicity Index is something we don’t usually see around here. In fact, dang near off the charts in some instances.
That is very bad. The timing remains the same and we are going to stick with 2:00pm to 10:00pm as the primary timeframe. This is because discrete supercells are likely to develop out ahead of the line later in the night so some could see a couple rounds of severe. ALL carry severe potential!
While the severe components are NOT FOR EVERYONE!! Those that see these cells are gonna see some Really BIG BOOMERS! Meaning Destructive Hail. Some areas could even see 2 to 4” diameter hail stones with a lot of half dollar size hail. For reference that’s anywhere from Golf Ball to Softball in Size which does absolute major and sometimes extreme damage alone. Winds… in the 60 to 80mph range… Those high-end wind gusts takes down a lot of Big Trees, Powerlines, and does some structural damage as well. Then there’s the Tornado Factor… Not good. They could be long track and unfortunately we all know what sorta damage comes from those.
So here we are. Forecasting what we feared last week. Nothing much has changed and in some cases has only gotten worse especially with the extreme CAPE which alone has the power to do all of the above. Even if the data we are seeing was cut in half this still would be a solid severe event for parts of our region especially STL East.
This is a situation to TAKE EXTREMELY SERIOUSLY folks. We can only hope and pray this forecast is a big ol’ bust and would love nothing more than for that to happen but we have to say it like we see it. Our goal is to keep you all safe and if we are wrong, so be it, but we are erring on the side of caution after seeing the latest data in the interest of your safety. This is NOT your typical forecast you see coming from us but we think it’s going to pose a significant risk to property and/or life so NOW IS THE TIME TO PREPARE!!
Be Smart. Plan Ahead. Have a Safe Spot!
Wishing you all the best as we go through this tough weather. Tim will have another update later today after a new set of data rolls in.
Stay Safe,
- TEAM HLEW -
