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Gust front over Roanoke shortly after noon

It was another pretty rough day of severe thunderstorms around Virginia, with numerous reports of wind damage, mostly to trees. The Roanoke Valley was twice under severe thunderstorm warnings, at midday and again nearly 4 hours later. Trees were reported blown down on Williamson Road near Hollins College and on Coyner Springs Road near U.S. 460 with the later storm. There were numerous other reports of wind damage in the area, and just a few reports of large hail. You can click here to scroll through the weather service reports, or visit this page to look at a map and listing of severe weather reports nationally.

It was an extremely rough day around Nebraska and Iowa, where the Omaha, Neb.-Council Bluffs, Iowa, was hammered by winds up to 100 mph and baseball-sized hail, causing widespread power outages and killing at least 2 when a tree fell on a car. This was caused by the same cold front that will be approaching us the next couple of days, plowing into hot, humid air. With this clash of air masses, lots of ouflow boundaries left from storms the last two days, a series of upper-level impulses moving ahead fo the cold front, and daytime heat and moisture bubbling into cooler air aloft, Saturday and Sunday appear likely to produce additional rounds of storms in our area.

With wind dynamics picking up above us, these storms may become more organized and severe weather may be more widespread throughout the East. Damaging winds and large hail appear to be the main threats, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some tornado reports, too.

Keep an eye on the sky this weekend.