(8:00AM – Tuesday, August 11th, 2026)
Severe Weather Threat Today/Tonight ⚡️
*Tuesday Morning Forecast Update*
While there was a great deal of uncertainty during last night’s forecast cycle, the past several hours of real-time data have provided a much clearer picture of how today is likely to evolve.
An area of t’storms developed across Northwestern Iowa and vicinity very early this morning, eventually growing upscale into a complex (MCS) as it progressed across Iowa over the past few hours. This complex has since continued to mature and is now producing severe weather as it approaches Illinois as of this forecast cycle (~8AM).
This complex will quickly track across all of Northern and portions of Central Illinois through the remainder of this morning and into this afternoon, posing a severe weather threat along the way. Damaging winds and a few tornadoes will be the primary threats, with the potential for significant severe weather as well. This includes significant damaging winds of 75+ MPH and the potential for corridors/swaths of more concentrated wind damage.
We have upgraded the entirety of Northern Illinois and portions of Central Illinois to a level 3 severe t’storm threat, where high confidence of at least scattered severe weather is likely. We did consider outlining a Level 4/numerous coverage severe weather threat across a portion of the area. However, we ultimately opted against it due to some lingering uncertainty regarding the extent of the severe weather potential. This includes the normally less-favorable morning timing, the fact that the MCS is still maturing as it approaches the region, and the influence of recent t’storm activity and associated outflow across portions of Northern Illinois.
Another round of t’storm activity, will be possible across portions of Northern and Central Illinois tonight as well. some severe weather threat will be possible with this activity.
#ilwx #severeweather
