00:00Hi, community meteorologist Tony Lavek joins us right now from Kiel Deer, once again in North Dakota with more on what's ahead.
00:05So, Tony, do you know what a yurt is?
00:12It's usually a noise I make when I fall out of the car, but that's just because I'm old, so I make all kinds of noises.
00:19No, not what you are talking about, at least not off the top of my head.
00:22What I do know is there's an aspect of storm chasing that does not get the love because it is not exactly the most exciting,
00:31and that is the wait part of hurry up and wait.
00:34I got up early this morning to make the seven-hour drive from Valentine, Nebraska, to get up here to North Dakota
00:40and have been sitting here in Kiel Deer for the last couple of hours as we are waiting for the front behind us to start to ignite supercells,
00:49a conditional threat for the early round.
00:52We talked about it last hour about the isolated supercell potential,
00:55but more concerning is going to be what's going to come later this evening into the overnight hours
00:59with the storms that are firing right now in Montana as those gain strength and work their way east.
01:04We could be looking at a very significant damaging wind event.
01:07But right now, all the focus is on whether or not we're going to see the isolated storm development.
01:12Myself and about 150 of my closest chaser friends all sitting in the parking lot.
01:17We are all playing the waiting game right now, waiting to see if these storms will indeed fire along that front
01:22that is about 20 miles off to our north, extends all the way east, almost to the Minnesota border,
01:28and then stretches back to our west and eventually southwest out across parts of Montana.
01:33This front is the one that we are watching to see if we're going to see any of these isolated early storms,
01:38the first round of potential, which will have the biggest threat for the largest hail
01:42and the potential for a couple of tornadoes with that as well.
01:45If those storms fire, that will be what we track for the early part of the evening,
01:50and then we will basically turn our attention to what is coming out from the west
01:53as those storms continue to gather strength across Montana.
01:56We're expecting a line of storms, possibly a bow echo, to work its way basically along and north of the I-94 corridor
02:04here in North Dakota, and that is going to sweep east overnight,
02:08and that is going to be the potential for the damaging wind threat,
02:12possibly significant gusts over 70 miles per hour, and maybe a few QLCS,
02:17those spin-up tornadoes that are there on the line.
02:20So that is going to be our concerns as we go into the overnight hours tonight.
02:24Now, you guys are talking about celebrating record highs.
02:27That is something I am never, ever going to celebrate, and believe it or not,
02:30I'm not lying.
02:31I just don't have time to find it.
02:32I have a kazoo in my car, which I've never actually blown for anything weather-related,
02:38but I would celebrate it today because I am not where it is 115 degrees plus.
02:43That is no bueno for me.
02:46But it is still amazingly warm up here, warmer than you would think for all the way up here in North Dakota.
02:51All right, so, Tony, real quick, I'm just curious.
02:53I always ask this of most storm chasers.
02:56Whenever it comes to your dinner plans, are you a gas station guy, a fast food guy,
03:00or a restaurant guy, or, number four, bring your own lunch guy?
03:07I bring my own food for the day.
03:09I ideally like to sit down someplace at night, but more times than not, unfortunately for me, it is fast food.
03:16All right, fast food or gas station, that's always been my two go-tos for storm chasing.
03:19All right, Tony Laubach joining us from Kildare, North Dakota.
03:22So, as we look at the latest here across the Northern Plains, you can see that in Lakota, actually, right there, there's a live look.
03:28So, right now, you can see the breezy winds.
03:30The flags right there are flapping pretty good there,
03:32but overall, we are going to see an increasing risk of severe weather here as we head into tonight.
03:36Let's go and take a look at the latest here on radar.
03:38A couple severe storms down in Louisiana.
03:40Jeff will detail those for you.
03:42But across the Northern Plains, we already have a couple severe thunderstorm warnings ongoing here across parts of Montana.
03:47Now, we have a new severe thunderstorm warning in effect currently for Billings.
03:51So, heads up for that.
03:52That's going to be for Yellowstone County there in Montana.
03:55So, heads up for that.
03:56Overall, here as we head into this evening, these storms are going to be the genesis of what we are tracking for the overall risk of severe weather.
04:02Here's an updated look at our AccuWeather exclusive storm zone.
04:05And as we head into tonight, that bullseye there across eastern parts of North Dakota is going to be where we see the highest potential of severe weather here as we head throughout this evening.
04:13And as we head into tonight, so heads up for that region out there, we're going to see a break in the action right now.
04:19This is more going to be an evening and overnight situation here.
04:22But the overall storm zone is going to extend from parts of Idaho all the way through parts of Minnesota, even Wisconsin.
04:28So, we'll be watching out for that potential heading into tonight.
04:30We have a severe thunderstorm watch in effect for all of eastern, pretty much, Montana.
04:35We've had a couple of severe thunderstorm warnings here popping up along far northern parts of North Dakota.
04:40And that just goes to show the atmosphere today is just primed for severe weather.
04:45And the reason why I say it is because this storm up here to the north that's been producing some pretty good-sized hail, it rapidly, it went from pretty much nothing, a blip on the radar, a light shower, to producing severe hail in about 15, 20 minutes.
04:59So, that's going to be the kind of explosive development that we're going to be tracking here across this region.
05:03So, future track radar is showing the highest potential for tornadoes is going to be right before sunset.
05:09After that, as Tony was talking about, we're going to be watching that transition to straight-line winds.
05:13Because what ends up happening, look at midnight tonight, I'm stopping the clock.
05:17Whenever you see a line of storms like this, if it's a straight line, generally speaking, the winds aren't quite as strong as you would expect.
05:24However, whenever you see a line of storms like this that kind of, like, curves out like that, that's whenever you can see those 50, 60, 70, 80.
05:32And in our cases tonight, our active weather local storm acts for wind gusts, 90-mile-an-hour straight-line winds.
05:37So, Jeff, this could be a possibly dangerous situation here developing as we head into tonight.
05:42Yeah, have those NOAA weather radios on for sure overnight tonight.
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