INDIANAPOLIS, INDIANA — A familiar storm pattern is set to return Friday, August 14, with the National Weather Service’s Storm Prediction Center placing much of the Plains, Midwest, and Ohio Valley under a Level 1 Marginal Risk for severe weather, according to an outlook released early Wednesday morning.
The threat area mirrors what communities saw a day earlier, running from near Denver and Colorado Springs eastward through Des Moines and Chicago, then continuing across Springfield, Illinois, Indianapolis, and into Columbus, Cincinnati, and Louisville. A broader zone of general thunderstorm activity is also expected to reach Milwaukee, Detroit, and Kansas City, even outside the marked risk area.
Forecasters say the day is likely to begin the same way Thursday did, with leftover elevated thunderstorms possibly still active during the morning hours. Those early storms could carry an isolated risk of severe weather even before the main afternoon heating begins.
What happens after that remains uncertain. Meteorologists say the biggest question is how a frontal boundary moving through the region behaves, and whether a capped atmosphere keeps storms from strengthening through the afternoon. If the cap breaks and storms do develop along the warmer side of the front, isolated hail and scattered damaging wind gusts could follow — with Chicago and Indianapolis both sitting inside that potential path.
Farther west, near Denver, Colorado Springs, and Kansas City, forecasters expect a different setup: widely scattered storms during the afternoon that, while fewer in number, could still turn severe with hail and strong wind gusts possible.
Residents across the affected corridor are advised to stay alert to changing conditions Friday afternoon and monitor updates from local emergency officials as the system develops.