One heckuva cold front coming

Yesterday brought some unbelievable weather conditions to the Great Plains thanks to a serious cold front sweeping our direction.

At Abilene, Texas, the temperature went from 91°F at 6 PM yesterday to 32°F with freezing rain at 9 AM this morning.

Grand Island, Nebraska, had a thunderstorm last evening featuring nickel-sized hail and a surface temperature of 24°F! That's quite a rare feat.

It's not going to get quite that cold here -- although we will likely drop into the upper 30s Thursday and Friday night. But this strong cold front could bring a nice quality squall line offering the usual scourges of spring: large hail, high winds, heavy rain, and tornadoes.

We're under a Slight Risk for severe storms this evening. The foreasters in Paducah advise, "THUNDERSTORMS ARE EXPECTED TODAY AND TONIGHT. THIS EVENING THROUGH THE OVERNIGHT HOURS THERE IS A SLIGHT RISK OF SOME STORMS BECOMING SEVERE CAPABLE OF PRODUCING DAMAGING WINDS...LARGE HAIL...AND POSSIBLY EVEN A FEW TORNADOES. REMEMBER...TORNADOES THAT OCCUR AT NIGHT CAN BE ESPECIALLY DEADLY DUE TO THE NUMBER OF PEOPLE WHO MAY BE ASLEEP AT THAT TIME."

We could see some isolated showers or storms -- which are already starting to appear on radar -- during the day before the big event this evening.

It's easy to get carried away by the hype since this is the first significant threat of severe storms for the season. Keep in mind, however, that we see Slight Risk outlooks many times during the year, and they don't always pan out. On the other hand, this particular cold front does have a history of bringing improbable weather, so who knows?