FIRST ALERT: Storms move in Friday night with 70+ mph winds threats

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:01:17]Good morning everyone. It is about 11:40 here on your Friday morning. I'm first alert meteorologist Kyle Kiel here at the KWQC plus desk as we have an updated severe weather outlook for you and and really not much has changed here for our local area, but there has been a heightened tornado risk slightly at least off to our north and west. So I personally have a couple of people who have asked about weather in Cedar Rapids. So I know that some people are heading off to the northwest here as we head into the weekend, but this is the first of several first alert days here as we head throughout really the weekend and into early next week, but the key here is that these storms are going to be very scattered as far as the severe weather goes over the next couple of days. I think Monday's the one day that we need to watch for maybe a bit more widespread severe weather. So, we're going to have a full update coming up on your news at noon, but I wanted to give you an update on tonight's severe weather. Again, we aren't tracking the potential for a line of storms to move through that could produce the potential of some damaging winds here as we head into tonight. Maybe a spin-up tornado, but the environment that we're going to be in, it's in the middle of the overnight. We don't have a lot of instability. It'll just be a maybe a couple of areas of rotation that we would have to watch along that leading edge of the storms, but I think the the higher tornado threat is going to be off to our north and west. Uh tomorrow, we'll have an isolated severe weather threat. We're technically under a level one out of five risk. The threat looks a little bit lower than what it did yesterday. Looked like we could get some scattered storms in the afternoon, but I think it'll be very isolated in nature, maybe one or two storms developing. And then Sunday is really trending more on the dry side as well. I think we're going to have more dry time than wet times. I think uh Saturday or I should say Sunday night into Monday, we'll have that higher threat for maybe some severe weather. Then heading into Tuesday, technically a first alert day is in effect, but I think the higher threat is going to end up southeast of the TV6 viewing area, which we'll get to that here in just a moment. But, here is the updated severe weather outlook from the Storm Prediction Center. Uh I just got that at 11:30 this morning as we advance over here, and you'll notice that there's not been much change in the placement of the level two and level three risk. Looks like we might have gotten inched a little bit off to the east with that level two risk, but wind gusts of 60 to 70 mph are going to be expected, and there could be a few of those storms that have enough of an updraft to get maybe some quarter-size hail going. And that tornado threat is pretty low here for our area, but you get off to the north and west, you see there uh just to the uh west of Cedar Rapids there or near Cedar Rapids, west of Vinton most up toward Waterloo.

[00:03:43]That's where there's a slightly increased risk for an isolated tornado.

[00:03:47]So, uh that's going to be something that we have to continue to watch off to our northwest. And then as these storms track to the southeast, the general idea is that they will lose a little bit of their punch. The highest risk for the 60 to 70 mph wind gusts will be northwest of let's say the Quad Cities and Muscatine. Uh maybe as you get toward Tipton, Iowa City, Anamosa, Cedar Rapids, that's where we have the higher threat for those damaging wind gusts.

[00:04:09]But again, you understand the idea that as those storms track off to the south and east, they will weaken over time.

[00:04:15]And again, we do have that potential for a few of those storms to produce hail up to the size of quarters. This particular setup isn't one where we're concerned of anything larger than an inch in diameter. So, that's the good news as far as our hail threat goes. But again, it's that level two to level three risk that we are concerned about here heading into tonight. So, as for tomorrow, we'll advance this advance this a little forward here and you'll notice that there is that level one risk across the area with that level two risk here farther to the west. This is mainly for Saturday night into early Sunday morning. That being said, in the afternoon hours, we'll have to watch the placement of outflow boundaries.

[00:04:50]boundaries. Got a warm front moving in as well. We'll have to watch the cap as well. If we've got warmer air aloft, that's going to prevent any storms from developing, but if one or two do develop, they will have the potential to produce that large hail, uh maybe a damaging wind gust. Can't rule out an isolated tornado. I think that threat's going to be higher off to our west. And then as we head into Sunday, again, this looks to be a more widespread here off to our west where we have a cold front that's going to be advancing eastward.

[00:05:14]However, we will have that warm front overhead, but I think our environment will be capped and we're not going to get really anything to trigger much in the way of storm development during the day, but it's Sunday night into Monday morning that we will watch a complex of storms move in. So, Monday could be a few rounds of storms actually that we are keeping track of. And as we head into Monday, especially in the afternoon and evening, virtually the entire state of Iowa is under that this is equivalent to level three risk of severe weather.

[00:05:39]Elsewhere, we've got a level two risk of severe weather. So, this is a day four outlook from the Storm Prediction Center. And I tend to agree that the more significance of your weather will likely be off to the northwest of the TV6 viewing area where we have the higher potential for the very large hail, the damaging wind, and perhaps even a few tornadoes. So, this is something that we do need to take day by day. It's not going to be a widespread, you know, thunderstorm complex that comes through each and every day, but the threat is there. So, let's time out the storms tonight. Do you have any afternoon plans? Things looking A-OK, lots of sunshine out there. We have those strong southerly winds that are helping warm those temperatures up. As we head into tonight, even around sunset, we're going to have a really nice sunset. So, don't let your guard down because notice by 9:00 10:00, while those storms off to our northwest that could potentially be producing damaging wind gusts, maybe a couple of tornadoes.

[00:06:29]Uh the timing I do like on our in-house model. Earlier, it was showing these lines of storms uh coming into the Quad Cities between 9:00 and 10:00. I think this is going to be closer to midnight.

[00:06:38]So, after 10:00 p.m., that's when our first alert day does start tonight.

[00:06:41]That's when we will start to see those storms move in, but notice they gradually weaken over time. So, what I think Exact Track is latching onto is that as these storms continue to move east, they're going to push out a little bit of a cold front, a mini cold front.

[00:06:56]We call it an outflow boundary. And what that really does is it kind of shuts down that instability that's to fuel those storms or the inflow to the storms. So, I think eventually over time, they will weaken as they move off to the east, but we still could see a few short showers and storms here as we head into the overnight.

[00:07:11]And it does look like Exact Track wants to develop a kind of like a mini low pressure that will maybe spark a few more storms in parts of the area as we head into Saturday morning, but by 8:00 9:00 in the morning, any rain should be out and we're going to be left with mainly dry conditions throughout the day, but watch as we head into the afternoon hours. Here's what we're watching very closely.

[00:07:31]You saw a couple of storms developing here, especially south of the Quad Cities. Any storms that do develop in this environment, the environment's going to be very unstable. So, if we don't have much of a cap or much warm air aloft, uh we run into maybe an outflow boundary from the morning storms, we could get an isolated severe storm going in any of these little cells that develop. But, I think the higher threat for any severe weather will be very late in the overnight hours. So, a lot to keep track of here as we head over the next several days here at KWQC. Obviously, we're going to uh keep you updated on the latest severe weather threat here as we head throughout the weekend. Again, it does look like uh later tonight and perhaps Sunday night into the day on Monday will be our higher threats for severe weather not expecting anything terribly widespread tonight, but certainly uh a lot of different aspects that we need to watch here um over the next several days. So, um let's see.

[00:08:27]Tracy's asking, "Why did you remove the weather from the streaming app? Do we have Uh it it should still be there. It should be on the the second channel there on the streaming app. So, that that's for Tracy. So, um yeah, in fact, we're looking at it right here.

[00:08:40]Yeah. It's what? It's just to me. Oh, on the streaming I think it's that, yeah. We did some tests, but it's fine. Oh, we were doing some testing. So, maybe when you checked it, it wasn't there, but it should it should be there now. So, and I think there's updates coming to it soon. So, more more more to come on the on the weather stream, Tracy. So, um all right. So, I'm going to have the latest updates on the news at noon and we're going to have more updates and more in-depth coverage coming up on Beyond the the First Alert right here on the KWQC Plus streaming app. That'll be at 1:30, and we'll have continued updates here as needed as we head throughout the day and the weekend.

[00:09:16]Thank you so much for watching on KWQC Plus. I'm meteorologist Kyle Kiel. Have a great day and stay safe this weekend.

[00:09:25]We're going to commercial break shortly.

[00:09:41]>> Mhm.