Today’s forecast is about a significant severe weather event that’s about to ramp up this afternoon and evening — and it’s only the beginning of a very active stretch. I’m tracking an enhanced (3/5) risk from central Illinois into eastern Ohio, including Indianapolis, with storms possible roughly 2 PM through midnight. The main hazards are very large hail, damaging winds, and a few tornadoes, and I’m especially concerned about the hail potential early on with discrete supercells. We’re talking baseball to teacup-sized hail in a few spots, the kind that can wreck windshields and do real damage. One of the biggest wildcards today is the Lake Michigan lake breeze. If storms stay north of it, they’ll be more elevated with big hail but a lower tornado risk. If storms fire south of it in the warm sector, the tornado threat goes up — including the conditional risk for an isolated strong/large tornado, especially near boundaries from northern Indiana into northwest Ohio. Later, storms should congeal into a line, and that’s when the damaging wind threat becomes more significant, with a few storms capable of 75+ mph gusts. I also laid out the timing through tonight and then looked ahead to next week, where multiple storm systems could keep severe weather chances going across the Midwest, Ohio Valley, and beyond.