3:10pm UPDATE: Potential Life-Threatening Tornado Outbreak Late This Afternoon and Tonight

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[scroll up for updated weather information]

This tornado outbreak has the potential for violent, long-tracked tornadoes at night. It is a recipe for a terrible disaster in terms of human life if precautions are not taken. 

The NWS SPC has expanded the red area in Iowa since this morning's forecasts. I continue to believe the brown area 

Here are the color codes:
  • Red hatched: High risk of strong tornadoes. 
  • Yellow hatched: Enhanced risk of strong tornadoes. 
  • Brown: Significant risk of tornadoes.
The northern area of Iowa-Illinois-Missouri will see tornado-producing thunderstorms beginning this afternoon and continuing into Tuesday night.

In the northern area, the storms are established by 6pm.

The southern area, from St. Louis across the Ozarks and into northeast Texas, may not develop until evening and then continue well into the night. Nighttime tornadoes are 2.5 times more deadly than tornadoes during the day. Below shows the beginning of the southern area as depicted by the TTWRF model. Note the strong storms in eastern Kansas that are not shown on some other models. 
The above image shows the forecast radar as well as rotation in the storm (red lines) as of 11pm.

In the strongest possible terms, I urge you to:
  • Sign up for StormWarn. It is just $25 for a year of peace of mind. If you are in the direct path of a tornado or 80+ mph thunderstorm-generated winds, it will ring two phones of yours with the warning. Think of it as a tornado alarm. Unlike a weather radio, it will not alert you to 1" hail 20 miles away at 3am.
  • A weather radio. They will wake you up. I recommend the programmable version to filter out the false alarms as much as possible. 
  • An app like AccuWeather's. Enable "location" to it will tell you if a tornado warning has been issued. 
  • Enable the FCC's Wireless Emergency Alerts on your smartphone. On an iPhone, touch "notifications" and scroll down. These aren't perfect. 
I recommend you have at least three of the above. It is still early in the 2023 tornado season, so any purchase of StormWarn or a weather radio will carry you through the season. If you have friends or relatives in these areas, call them and refer them to this forecast. Their lives may literally depend on it. 

If you live in a mobile home, please, please listen to this brief piece from my friend Charles Peek. If it were me and there wasn't a friend or relative I could stay with tomorrow night, I would spend the Tuesday night in a motel if the forecast still looks this way Tuesday morning. 

If the tornado alarm goes off, make sure you have shoes and a flashlight nearby to take into shelter. 
I will update this forecast in the mid- to late afternoon..  And, remember, I provide real-time storm coverage on Twitter @usweatherexpert.  

BTW: If you enjoy weather... especially tornadoes, hurricanes and severe storms, you'll love my book Warnings. 

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