DES MOINES, Iowa — We are watching the skies closely as many dynamics are coming together for severe weather in parts of the state by Monday evening. The ingredients we have include warm temperatures, high dewpoints (moisture), and wind shear of great speed and directional change with height.

The one last thing we need is a lifting mechanism moving into the primed atmosphere to lead to storm development. It all comes down to an approaching cold front, and whether it moves in time to meet with these ingredients late afternoon and evening to cause storms to form.

Models vary in the placement of the storm development this evening. A few supercell storms are expected to develop along the front and move into Central and Northern Iowa.

Anytime after 5:00 p.m. and especially 7:00 p.m. on, you’ll want to be near a location where you can take cover, if needed, and have a radar app, like 13WarnMe to be able to watch for storms coming your way.

Here is a look at the morning run of the GRAF model:

Here is a look at the HRRR model:

CAPE (which is storm energy) and shear (which is twist of the winds with height by either direction or speed) will both maximize during the afternoon hours.

As the cold front hits these two elements, we could get lift to allow storms to form sporadic in nature along the front in western Iowa and move into Central Iowa.

The tornado threat appears to be highest in north central Iowa this evening. Although a tornado could fire up in any storm that forms along the front.

The weather team will be live through the evening on WHO 13, WHO13+, and Iowa’s Weather Channel for tornado warnings tonight.