GORGEOUS MCV-LIKE FEATURE ON VISIBLE SATELLITE THIS MORNING! (credit: @UWCIMSS)

DISCUSSION: As of earlier this morning, there was an area of banded weak convection slowly moving southward from Central Iowa towards Northern Missouri.  As this was occurring the associated precipitation evolved into an weakly anti-cyclonically rotating precipitation feature which looked quite similar to what is known as a mesocale convective vortex or an MCV.  It is worth noting that this MCV did not cause any significant thunderstorm activity beyond just aside slowly southward-moving shower activity.  As a further explanation, an MCV is a low-pressure center within a mesoscale convective system (MCS) that pulls winds into a circling pattern (or vortex-like structure).  With a core only 30 to 60 miles wide and 1 to 3 miles deep, an MCV is often overlooked in standard weather analyses.  An MCV can often take on a life of its own, persisting for up to 12 hours after its parent MCS has dissipated.  An MCV that moves into tropical waters, such as the Gulf of Mexico, can serve as the nucleus for a tropical storm or hurricane (www.nssl.noaa.gov).  To learn more about other high-impact weather content from across the United States, click here!

Morning thunderstorms in southern #Iowa, spiraling clouds into bordering states, beautiful via #GOES imagery. #iawx pic.twitter.com/NDy9WAs58L

— UW-Madison CIMSS (@UWCIMSS) June 11, 2016