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Tornado watches now cover all of Virginia except here in the southwest. One factor that will likely keep thunderstorm develop minimized across our area today is the westerly downslope wind. Winds blowing down the eastern side of the mountains tend to dry out the air and suppress convection. Dew points are in the upper 50s and low 60s in Southwest Virginia right now ... we can sometimes get some pretty big storms out of that kind of moisture, under the right conditions, but not as easily as with the upper 60s and lower 70s dew points farther east. In the tornado watch area, winds blowing out of the south and southwest may be able to give the storms that develop there a little bit of a turn, so some hail, high winds and isolated tornadoes are possible, hence the tornado watch. The stronger wind dynamics throughout the atmosphere are much farther north, in the tornado watch that was issued earlier today for northern Virginia. In Southwest Virginia, don't be surprised to see a few showers and maybe a thunderstorm or two this evening as a cold front moves into the area. While some gusty winds or small hail are possible, a widespread severe weather episode appears increasingly unlikely for our immediate area.