Severe Thunderstorm Watch For Bismarck Mandan

The National Weather Service in Bismarck has issued a "Severe Thunderstorm Watch" for most of our listening area until 8pm tonight.  It does include both Burleigh and Morton counties in south central North Dakota.

At the time of this article thunderstorms have already began forming south of Minot and few of these storms have already reached "severe" limits.  Some of these storms contained hail and strong winds.

Here's what we can expect in Bismarck Mandan.  Severe storms will form west of Bismarck Mandan this afternoon moving into the area around 4 to 6 pm.  This seems to be the most likely time frame.  The storms will begin in Western North Dakota early this afternoon and move from west to east throughout the day.  The main threats will be large hail up to  two inches in diameter and damaging winds up to 75 mph with potential supercell thunderstorms.  An isolated tornado or two is possible with these storms as well.  That's round one.  You can also expect another round of thunderstorms to return to North Dakota on the overnight and into Saturday morning, with a strong thunderstorm possible.

We certainly need some moisture in the Bismarck Mandan area.  Hopefully, we can get it with these storms without the hail and damaging winds.