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DES MOINES, Iowa —

Much of Iowa has a chance of thunderstorms Thursday, including possible severe weather.

Here's what we know about Thursday's system:

Iowa weather: Strong storm chances return this evening and overnight for parts of Iowa

Where and when storms will fire

Almost all of Iowa has a Level 2 of 5 risk for severe storms Thursday evening.

Hearst Owned

Forecast as of Wednesday midday.

The driver behind these storms will be 70° temperatures and more humid air flowing into the state Thursday, followed by a boundary coming in from the west toward evening.

If storms can fire, they'll most likely start in far western/northwest Iowa between 4-7 p.m.

Hearst Owned

Forecast as of Wednesday midday.

More storms could develop farther south later in the evening. The number of storms could be limited by warm air situated several thousand feet above the ground, though. These warm layers frequently choke off development.

Hearst Owned

Forecast as of Wednesday midday.

Any storms that form will travel east into central Iowa through the first half of Thursday night. The severe threat in central Iowa will likely be over around midnight.

What threats to expect

Large hail is the main threat possible with Thursday evening's storms — especially in the western half of Iowa.

Hearst Owned

Tornadic and damaging wind potential will be limited by the warm air layer above the ground, but wind shear will be favorable for hailstorms.

A few spots could get meaningful rain, but widespread, heavy downpours don't look likely right now.

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One of the biggest highlights of Rachel Folden’s career came in 2023. Folden, the hitting coach for the Arizona Complex League Cubs at the time, got to shadow then-Cubs minor league hitting coordinator Dustin Kelly, now the Chicago Cubs’ hitting coach, during a trip to Wrigley Field.

When Patrick Wisdom strolled to the batter's box to test his injured wrist, Folden was tabbed to throw a session of batting practice.

“He was hitting balls off the scoreboard in Wrigley because he has stupid power,” Folden said.

It was a big moment in Wisdom’s road to recovery and a milestone achievement in Folden’s rapidly rising career in baseball. There she was, in the iconic baseball stadium where she’d sat in the stands many times to watch Cubs games, throwing to one of the team’s sluggers.

Folden understood at the time that it was a big deal, even if it was a short-lived opportunity.

“It was just like a surreal moment of like, I work here,” Folden said.

There have been tons of big moments along the way for Folden, who over the last few years has become one of the organization’s most valued minds when it comes to hitting and one of the game’s top innovators as a female working in a world dominated by males.

Folden is thriving in her first season in Triple-A as a co-hitting coach with the Iowa Cubs. She's also one step away from reaching the major leagues.

"I know a lot of times these articles get written because she's a lady," said Iowa co-hitting coach Rick Strickland. "But the reality of it is, there's no barrier as far as I'm concerned in her ability to coach."

"I fell in love with it"

Folden has had a passion for coaching for a long time. She started by giving lessons while playing softball at Marshall University, where she was a four-time NFCA Division I All-American and set school career records in batting average (.405), hits (266), home runs (58), RBI (196), total bases (505) and walks (143).

Folden went on to play professionally for five seasons in National Pro Fastpitch. She also worked as a high school coach in California in 2009 and landed college coaching gigs at Holy Names University and Valparaiso. She liked coaching but hated recruiting. So Folden opened her own facility called Folden Fastpitch.

Located in Indiana, the business offered baseball and softball instruction using biomechanics, science, technology and data. Folden used the innovative approaches to customize training for each individual player. At the time, the data/science approach was rarely being used in the industry.

“I fell in love with it,” Folden said.

Folden posted content of what her players were working on throughout social media. It caught the attention of Travis Kerber, an instructor at Elite Baseball Academy in Chicago. The academy and its president, Justin Stone, were considered major innovators of many of the things that Folden was doing.

Wanting to get more into softball, Kerber told Stone about Folden and they set up a meeting. Over a large plate of bacon at a diner, they talked hitting and business. Stone was immensely impressed by Folden’s confidence and curiosity to try different things at a time when new ideas weren’t always warmly welcomed.

“Right away, you could see that that’s what she wants to do,” Stone said.

Folden didn’t want to give up her business, though. Instead, she decided to partner with Stone and routinely made the trip to Chicago to start working with him. Stone’s out-of-the-box ideas started catching the attention of others in the industry. Folden helped the company with consulting for college baseball and softball teams.

Eventually, Major League Baseball teams started catching on. When they wanted to start building their own hitting labs, like the one Stone had, they’d come to Chicago and hear presentations about what he was doing. Folden helped at these events, and Stone made it clear to teams that she had a promising future in baseball.

“I would always introduce her, I’d say, ‘This is Rachel Folden, she’s going to be the first female to work in professional baseball,’” Stone said. “And they would laugh. And I was deadbeat serious.”

When Stone was hired as the Chicago Cubs’ director of hitting in 2019, he urged Folden to apply for a job coaching in the minor league system. Having worked with Stone was no guarantee she’d get the job.

But Folden impressed Theo Epstein, Jed Hoyer and Jason McLeod, who were all working in the team’s front office at the time. About a month later, she was hired. Stone, who was still getting to know Epstein at the time, remembers the Cubs executive being impressed with his recommendation.

"I remember him (Theo) saying, 'Thank you, Justin, she's really, really impressive,'" Stone said.

Folden rises through the Cubs organization

Folden is like many of the players she's coaching in the minors, working her way up through the Cubs' system. She has worked as a lead hitting lab tech and a Rookie Ball hitting coach. Folden has also been the hitting coach at the Arizona Complex League and working as a minor league coordinator.

She spent last season in Double-A Tennessee. Then, prior to this season, Folden was promoted to Triple-A to work with some of the organization's top prospects on the verge of making it to the major leagues.

Strickland is in his second season in Iowa but has known Folden for several years as the two worked together in the organization. This season, he's gotten a front-row seat to her teaching. He likes how Folden can use her knowledge of analytics and biometrics and simplify it for players to understand.

"Extremely knowledgeable," Strickland said. "Passionate. She's a tremendously hard worker but most importantly an excellent communicator."

The communication part is one of her biggest assets. Folden has connected with players by building strong relationships with them. By constantly checking in on how they're doing, she has learned about them not just as players but people.

Players have felt comfortable talking to Folden not just about hitting but many life situations like divorces or illnesses in their family or other important things in their lives. In turn, it has led to better and deeper conversations about hitting.

"Rachel is a good coach since she lets you be yourself," said Iowa catcher Moises Ballesteros. "She always says to have fun in the game. She helped me a lot last year when I was in Double-A and I'm glad to have her (here) this year."

"I represent an entire gender"

While baseball has become more progressive in recent years with more females being hired throughout the game, there's still a long ways to go. Folden said many ballparks still haven't adjusted to clubs that have female coaches on staff. That means sometimes having to walk a little extra distance to get to her designated space or to shower.

Then there are the challenges that come with being a female in a world dominated by men. Folden admits she often faces questions about her legitimacy in the game, even though female coaches are becoming more common. A 2023 report on the Betting.us website indicated that nearly three dozen women were employed as coaches in the major and minor leagues.

"Every time I meet somebody new, it becomes difficult to know if they think I'm good because they think I'm good or they're surprised because I'm a woman that I'm good," she said. "You kind of have to navigate that every time you meet somebody new or every time somebody watches you work."

Folden isn't worried about being accepted. She knows if she works hard and continues to care about her players, acceptance will come, regardless of her gender. But she understands that she and other women who are working in the game are trendsetters and that the future of other females in baseball may be determined with how they perform. That's a lot to process. So Folden tries to put it out of her mind as much as she can.

"I represent an entire gender in most cases," she said. "I do get that. It's not necessarily fair, but it is how it goes. You realize that when you're a woman working in this field, that if I don't do a good job, I'm probably going to slam the door shut behind me and it's going to be very hard to hire a female behind me because it's a self-fulfilling prophecy. I'm just fulfilling what everybody thought I wasn't going to be good at in the first place, right? It's like, well, that experiment's over, we won't hire another woman and everybody can go about their day and nobody cares, right? So there's a real responsibility that we all have that work in this industry. But at the same time, I don't think about it daily. I really don't. My No. 1 focus is to do my job and to do it well."

Folden's success has her on the doorstep of the big leagues, although she's already had a chance to fill in at Chicago when a coach had to leave the team temporarily.

Stone said he's had many conversations with Folden about working at the next level in a variety of roles. Folden said she isn't worried about that right now. Her attention is on the hitters in Iowa and helping them reach the big leagues. But if things keep progressing, her time might come as well.

"I can't say it surprises me," Stone said.

Tommy Birch, the Register's sports enterprise and features reporter, has been working at the newspaper since 2008. He's the 2018, 2020 and 2023 Iowa Sportswriter of the Year. Reach him at tbirch@dmreg.com or 515-284-8468

AMES − Iowa State football's new running backs coach Jake Landry was officially hired at the end of February. He welcomed a pair of newborn twins less than a month later and quickly coordinated a move to relocate his family to Iowa from North Dakota.

They just moved into their new house a few weeks ago, so it's been a whirlwind − or cyclone, rather. Not everything has been unpacked, but Landry already feels right at home.

From seeing the passion Ames has for the cardinal and gold and the pride for the Cyclones, Landry can sense the importance his new team has on the community.

Amid the hectic nature of taking care of newborn twins, settling into a new job and setting up his house, Landry's new neighbor made sure to ask the hard-hitting questions.

"My neighbor came over right away and wanted to know if I hated (the University of) Iowa, I could tell that it's important and really fortunate that my family can be part of a community like this," Landry said.

But, wait, that doesn't answer the question.

"Yes," he said. "That's the right answer, right?"

It's good enough for Cyclone Nation for now, and he'll have a few more months to develop his feelings toward the Hawkeyes before the annual Cy-Hawk Game.

Until then, Landry is getting to know his new batch of players. He previously spent last season at FCS powerhouse North Dakota State, where he was the offensive coordinator and running backs coach.

In his one year with the Bison, they claimed another FCS national title and he coached CharMar Brown, who rushed for 1,181 yards and 15 touchdowns. Brown was awarded the Jerry Rice Award, an accolade given to the nation's top performing freshman at the FCS level.

Landry will get to work with the Cyclones' running backs, a group headlined by the returning tandem of Carson Hansen and Abu Sama III. As a team, Iowa State ran for 2,247 yards and 27 touchdowns last year.

"He's a great teacher in the meeting rooms," Hansen said of Landry. "He does a great job of the technical piece, like knowing what to coach and how to teach it. Then, onto the field as well. It's translates very well. He's not a negative guy, he's always positive on the field and keeps our spirit uplifted and wanting to go out and compete."

Landry is a native of Grand Forks, North Dakota. A skilled communicator in breaking down film or explaining certain techniques, it's no surprise that he excels at teaching.

Both of his parents were teachers, so it's in his DNA.

After an all-state high school career, Landry played quarterback and was a two-year captain at the University of North Dakota from 2006-10.

He quickly transitioned to the coaching world a year after his playing days were over as a graduate assistant at Division II Minnesota-Duluth. In 2011, he was on the same coaching staff with current Iowa State wide receivers coach Noah Pauley, who was a student assistant at the time for Minnesota-Duluth.

"It's really cool to get my closest friend here together with me to work, he's done a great job," Pauley said. "He's probably drinking through a fire hose a little bit right now, trying to manage home life and getting football down as well, but he's going to bring a lot of energy in that (running backs) room. The guys are going to love playing for him.

"He's obviously had a ton of success at his last stops and obviously been a national championship offensive coordinator, so we're all excited to have him here and especially myself."

Before Pauley and Landry reunited on Matt Campbell's coaching staff in Ames, Landry climbed the ranks with various coaching roles over the years at Division III Wisconsin-La Crosse, FCS schools North Dakota State and St. Thomas, and FBS-level gigs at Northern Illinois and Temple.

"It goes back to the background of my mom and dad being teachers, I take great pride in being a teacher − teaching our guys in the classroom so when they go out on the football field, they have every tool at their disposal to be able to go out and have success," Landry said. "Being able to work at lower levels, it teaches you a lot. You got to put in the work and sometimes that work looks different, depending on what level of football you're at but you never forget kind of where you came from."

Landry replaced the vacancy left by Tyler Roehl, who was the Cyclones' running backs coach and assistant head coach for one season before leaving for an NFL job with the Detroit Lions as a tight ends coach.

Coincidentally, Landry also replaced Roehl last year as North Dakota State’s offensive coordinator, when Roehl left the Bison to join Campbell's staff.

"The success that North Dakota State has had sustainable over the last 15-20 years has been nothing short of exceptional and of the qualities it takes to be successful, that's a great starting point for us in trying to find staff," Campbell said. "... (Landry) has been successful in that everywhere he's been, he's impacted winning in a really positive way. We were looking to push that running back room, which we feel is really talented and it's got a chance to be elite. But equally, how do you continue to help us grow and be the best offense we can be? Those were really the criteria we were looking for and Jake really fit in for us."

The competitiveness all throughout the running back position has stood out to Landry early on.

Last season, Iowa State had three primary running backs with Hansen, Sama and Jaylon Jackson.

Sama and Hansen are obvious headliners, but Dylan Lee and Aiden Flora are also looking to get into the mix.

There's still time to determine how the pecking order shakes out after Sama and Hansen, but so far things have been good for Landry.

"Really getting ingrained in the program," Landry said. "It's been awesome. It's been busy. We just had twin boys on St. Patrick's Day so sleep is a thing in the past right now, but everything's been going great so far."

Eugene Rapay covers Iowa State athletics for the Des Moines Register. Contact Eugene at erapay@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter at @erapay5.

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Winning Powerball numbers from April 16 drawing

20-24-42-43-49, Powerball: 19, Power Play: 3

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Winning Pick-3 numbers from April 16 drawing

Midday: 0-5-3

Evening: 4-1-4

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Winning Pick-4 numbers from April 16 drawing

Midday: 3-6-1-8

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Winning Lucky For Life numbers from April 16 drawing

01-34-38-43-47, Lucky Ball: 03

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Winning Lotto America numbers from April 16 drawing

02-05-45-47-48, Star Ball: 08, ASB: 02

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Winning Powerball Double Play numbers from April 16 drawing

07-36-40-47-59, Powerball: 09

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Tickets can be purchased in person at gas stations, convenience stores and grocery stores. Some airport terminals may also sell lottery tickets.

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This results page was generated automatically using information from TinBu and a template written and reviewed by an Iowa editor. You can send feedback using this form. Our News Automation and AI team would love to hear from you. Take this survey and share your thoughts with us.

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