DES MOINES, Iowa — Big changes are coming during the next 36 hours in Iowa. The weather timeline below introduces you to the rollercoaster.

Temperatures will stay pretty steady over Sunday night as south winds kick in and keep them from falling much. Rain, however, will fall in the form of spotty showers Sunday night into the early afternoon on Monday.

The mercury will rise quickly into the low 80s in the afternoon as winds gust to around 40mph out of the southwest. Bookmark that wind direction in your brain, as it’ll be important in a bit.

On Sunday, the Storm Prediction Center trimmed the moderate risk of severe weather north, as I thought it would last night. We still have a chance to see strong storms in northern Iowa Monday evening, but coverage farther south is in question. Colorado State’s severe weather algorithm output follows below.

We’ll have more than enough energy in the atmosphere for severe thunderstorms to form. What appears to be lacking in central Iowa is what we call convergence. A cold front will move into northwest Iowa during the evening on Monday, but those southwest winds I mentioned earlier will be PARALLEL to the front. Meaning they won’t be using the front as a lifting mechanism like they would if the winds were more southeasterly, or more perpendicular, to the front. Thunderstorms need heat, moisture and lift to form. We’ll have the first two for sure in central Iowa, but it appears we’ll be lacking much of the third.

Storms will still form, it appears, north of Highway 20 (closer to the surface low over Minnesota) and south of Highway 34 where parameters are better. We’ll be monitoring.

Note that the short-range models below and above keep central Iowa clear of thunderstorms, while giving northern and southern Iowa a chance. The storms that DO form will be strong to severe.

The image below shows where the HRRR model thinks rotating thunderstorms will track. Again, mostly to the north.

Tuesday will be cooler and mostly sunny. More rain chances follow Wednesday and Thursday.

Highs for the next six days, your WHO 13 7-day forecasts, and extended forecasts follow. We’ll keep updating as things change!