Severe Storms this Morning

Had a line of severe thunderstorms move through the area over the course of the early morning hours. It produced wind gusts up to 70 mph and had a classic signiture of a bow echo. What is a bow echo exactly? Well look at the picture below to see one.

This particular line of storms is called a bow echo because it literally takes the shape of a bow with the middle part of the line portruding outward. This happens because very strong winds inside the storm are actually pushing the rain in the storm forward causing it to be further downstream then the rest of the storm. There are also certain areas we look for very strong winds in even a smaller scale then a bow. We look for whats called an "inflow notch." This notch is an area in the back part of the storm with very low amount of radar returns. The areas I am talking about is where the arrow is pointing. The piece I circled is the area where the strongest winds would be located in the storm according to the location of the inflow notch.

Another round of severe weather possible later today and tonight so get ready for more!!

KDlt Meteorologist Cody Matz