The Storm Prediction Center highlights the Stateline with a slight risk of severe weather during the afternoon and evening hours. According to their convective (thunderstorm) outlook, there's a 30% chance of severe weather occurring within 25 miles of a given point. Ok, that might sound a bit confusing, so let me make this a little easier to understand. Picture having a map of the Stateline....now, put your finger on any point on that map, and draw a circle with roughly a 25 mile radius. Anywhere within that circle would have a 30% chance of seeing severe weather. For example, let's say we chose Rockford as our center point. We could then draw a circle that goes from Freeport to Durand to Beloit to Marengo to Rochelle or thereabouts. Anywhere within that circle would have a 30% chance of seeing severe weather... and that's really the case for Wednesday, since the entire Stateline is covered in that slight risk area. I guess to make a long and complicated story much much shorter, the Storm Prediction Center says there's a 30% chance of severe weather here on Wednesday.

Below, you'll see the setup for Wednesday afternoon's storms. It's one of the simpler setups for severe weather....we're generally just talking about a classic battle of the airmasses here... Warm air ahead of the front colliding with cold air behind the front. It's a stronger front than some of those we've seen recently, so there might be a little more "oomph" to these storms than we've seen in a couple weeks.

We're probably talking about a damaging wind threat more than anything else with this severe weather episode, but there's the possibility that some large hail could be a factor in some of these storms. The tornado threat is rather small, because the winds here at the surface and upper levels are primarily coming out of the same direction (SW). For tornadoes to be a prominent threat, you'd normally like to see winds at the surface out of the S or SSE, with upper level winds out of the WSW or W to promote rotation within a given storm. That's not to say we can completely rule out tornadoes as a threat...but the chances don't look to be that high.

Just a reminder, should a watch or warning be issued for the Stateline, we'll initiate a live blog with instantaneous updates to give you the most up to date information! You'll find that right here on the weather page at wifr.com

Oh yeah, one more thing... once we get rid of these storms Wednesday night or early Thursday morning...it's clear sailing straight through the 4th of July weekend!