textproduct: Aberdeen

KEY MESSAGES

- Dry and breezy conditions are expected Friday. Afternoon humidity will drop between 20 to 30 percent and combine with wind gusts of 25 to 35 miles per hour. This may create elevated fire weather concerns.

UPDATE

Issued at 843 PM CDT Thu May 7 2026

Quiet overnight period in store across the region with just some increasing mid/high clouds through the night. Winds will be light with lows dropping into the 30s for many areas. No big changes to the forecast through 12Z Friday.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 231 PM CDT Thu May 7 2026

Mostly clear skies this afternoon, with light and variable winds from this morning transitioning to become northwesterly through the rest of this afternoon and evening. Still expecting sustained speeds around 10 to 15 miles per hour, with an occasional gust to around 20 miles per hour. Dew points have dropped a bit more than expected this afternoon over north central South Dakota, leading to some pockets of humidity below 20 percent this afternoon. While fire weather conditions are not a major consideration this afternoon, dry conditions combined with the winds may pose a minor concern.

A slight warmup in temperatures Friday (highs into the low to mid 70s) will help keep conditions dry Friday afternoon, with afternoon humidity bottoming out between 20 and 25 percent. A tightening pressure gradient will bring the return of northwesterly winds Friday afternoon, gusting between 25 and 35 miles per hour. The combination of dry and and windy conditions may be enough to create elevated fire weather concerns, and reaching Red Flag conditions is not out of the question. Latest HREF joint probabilities give a broad 10 to 20 percent chance of reaching that criteria over northeastern South Dakota and western Minnesota, although forecaster confidence is perhaps slightly higher. Either way, Grassland Fire Danger will also depend on the status of fuels, and confidence is currently low on that point. Therefore, when taking that into account with the marginal setup, no fire weather headlines will be issued at this time.

There is an increasing signal for some light rain to clip the Aberdeen forecast area over northeastern South Dakota and western Minnesota Friday night into early Saturday morning. Vorticity maximum aloft will be the main driver of these showers, and the current expectations are for fairly light showers overall. Only a couple of hundredths at the most are currently expected, with the best chances (roughly 20-40%) occurring after midnight.

A quick note on the potential for rain over central South Dakota on Saturday: The latest ensemble guidance continues the trend of keeping precipitation to the south and west of the Aberdeen CWA. As the event grows nearer, confidence is growing on central South Dakota (namely Stanley/Jones/Lyman counties where the best chances would be located) seeing no rain on Saturday.

By early next week, an embedded shortwave will move over the northern plains, bringing a jet streak along with it at the base of the wave. The divergence aloft will support chances for rain showers and thunderstorms Monday evening. Confidence is not high in severe storms developing, but can't rule anything out at this point. While a plume of MUCAPE extends into the region, the best chances for precipitation generated by the jet streak don't quite line up with the MUCAPE, the latter located to the southwest of the former. The best chance for a severe storm to develop would likely be if there is enough of an intersection between the location of the instability and the jet streak, which would likely only occur for a short time period. There also seems to be a lot of uncertainty between models on where the position of the jet streak going to be, namely the Euro ensemble pushing things much further south (out of the Aberdeen CWA) than the latest GEFS run. The NBM forecast appears to agree with the GEFS for the moment, but there is still plenty of time for this to change with future forecasts.

AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z SATURDAY/

Issued at 619 PM CDT Thu May 7 2026

Terminals KABR,KATY,KPIR,KMBG

VFR conditions are forecast through the TAF period. Light/variable surface winds tonight will become northwest and breezy/gusty by early Friday afternoon.

ABR WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

SD...None. MN...None.