Thunderstorms, tornadoes possible overnight in Belleville. See latest forecast timing
As a cold front moves through the region Friday, thunderstorms are possible in the Belleville area overnight, and some storms could become severe and produce damaging winds or tornadoes.
The best chances for severe weather are north of the greater St. Louis region, the National Weather Service St. Louis office meteorologist Melissa Delia told the News-Democrat Friday morning, but the possibility can’t be ruled out in Belleville.
Whether the thunderstorms over Belleville become severe depends on how much they weaken when moving across Kansas and Western Missouri in the afternoon before reaching the metro-east Friday evening and overnight into Saturday.
“But of course, with any threat for overnight severe weather, we want folks to be sure to have ways of receiving warnings while they are asleep,” Delia said.
The window for thunderstorms in Belleville is from 2 to 4 a.m. Saturday, according to the NWS forecast.
“We’ve got about a low- to medium-confidence that these are going to become severe overnight or this afternoon,” Delia said.
It’s uncertain whether storms will become severe as far south as Belleville, Delia continued, and the metro-east is in the “marginal risk” zone, or a 1 out of 5 risk level, for severe weather.
After an active week of rain and thunderstorms, showers are in the forecast for Saturday and then drier, cooler conditions are expected Sunday through Tuesday.
Are flooding, tornadoes likely this spring in Belleville?
Last year, the greater St. Louis and southwest Illinois metropolitan area saw 47 tornadoes, compared to about 23 in a typical year, Delia said. Swaths of North St. Louis haven’t yet recovered from a deadly EF3 tornado that ripped through the region in May.
It’s unclear whether 2026 will continue the trend of abnormally frequent tornadoes, as forecasters can’t precisely predict on a seasonal basis how common severe weather is going to be, Delia said.
“There’s so many things that can change, but what we can say is that spring is, climatologically, our most favored time of the year for severe weather,” Delia said. “It’s when we see the most of it. It’s when we see some of our most extreme severe weather.”
It’s a good idea to have multiple ways to receive weather warnings, as well as to have a plan of where to go if you receive a tornado warning.
While seasonal tornado trends are difficult to predict, flooding likelihood is more easily forecast. The NWS St. Louis office’s 2026 Spring Flood Outlook finds minor flooding is unlikely from the Illinois or Mississippi rivers.
“We did not have the snow cover across the north in those basins that we normally have, and so that’s really reducing the amount of water that’s going into the river systems this spring as everything warms up to our north,” Delia said.
If severe thunderstorms produce lots of heavy rainfall in multiple bouts, that could increase flood risk, Delia continued, but the overall likelihood of flooding this spring is not particularly high.
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