textproduct: Aberdeen

KEY MESSAGES

- Southerly winds increase Friday, with widespread 30-40 mile per hour gusts expected during the afternoon. There is a roughly 10-30% chance for gusts to reach 45 miles per hour or more over eastern South Dakota and western Minnesota.

- Warm conditions, strong winds, and dry vegetation will lead to elevated fire weather concerns across central South Dakota Thursday, and across central and northeastern SD and west central MN Friday.

- Thursday and Friday, highs will reach the upper 70s to low 80s. These temperatures are 20-25 degrees above normal, and will approach record highs.

- Rain chances return Friday with a 20-30% chance of light scattered showers over northeastern SD and western MN. Additional chances for showers come Saturday along a cold front, where there is a 20-50% chance to see 0.1 inch of rain over northeastern SD and western MN.

UPDATE

Issued at 608 AM CDT Thu Oct 22 2026

See below for an aviation forecast discussion for the 12Z TAFs.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 134 AM CDT Thu Oct 22 2026

As high surface pressure is moving to the east over the Great Lakes, a low surface pressure will be developing over NV and moving to the northeast to be over MT today. This will be causing the pressure gradient over SD to tighten, which helps to strengthen the winds aloft. These stronger southeasterly winds will start to mix down over central SD this afternoon, with gusts up to 30 mph. Overnight the stronger winds will spread to the east over northeastern SD and west central MN as a low level jet develops over the area. Friday morning into the afternoon, the HREF has a 30-50% chance for the winds to be gusting up to 45 mph or more along the edges of the Prairie Coteau. The ensembles on the other hand keep the chance for this below 30%. These winds are right on the edge of wind advisory criteria, and the upcoming model runs will need to be watched to see if an advisory is needed. These stronger winds and the dry vegetation over the area are leading to high grassland fire danger over central SD on Thursday and high to very high over central and northeastern SD and west central MN. The one thing keeping the fire danger from increasing, and a red flag warning being needed, is the higher humidity values. Thursday the minimum relative humidity is above 35% and Friday the values east of the Missouri River will be above 35% and to the west will be between 30-45%: lowest over Jones, Stanley, and Lyman counties.

While the low surface pressure will not be moving over SD as it heads into Canada, its frontal boundaries will. A warm front has moved in today and will stick around for a bit Friday. The southeasterly winds behind this warm front will move more warmth into SD, causing temperatures today and Friday to be 20-25 degrees warmer than normal, with highs in the upper 70s to low 80s. Some moisture will be moving in Thursday evening and overnight along the southeasterly flow. This moisture will interact with the low level jet and the warm front moving out on Friday to cause some isolated showers Thursday night to scattered rain showers early Friday morning into the afternoon over central and northeastern SD. There will be another round of rain showers late Friday night into Saturday morning as the cold front moves through. The models vary how long the front and its rain sits over portions of eastern SD Saturday, which then impacts how much rainfall is expected. The HREF has a 20-40% chance for 0.1 inch of rain to occur over northeastern SD by Friday night while the ensembles have 10-20%. The ensembles then have a 20-50% chance for 0.1 inch to occur from both rounds of rain from Friday and Saturday combined. So, not much rainfall is expected.

The cold front moving through will cause some strong post frontal winds to develop over central SD late Friday night into Saturday morning. There is a 30-60% chance for winds to be sustained at or greater than 30 mph, and 30-60% chance for gusts to be 45 mph or more west of the James River Valley. This cold front will also bring a substantial change to temperatures by cooling things off again. Sunday's temperatures will be around normal to 10 degrees below normal for this time of the year, with highs in the mid 40s to low 50s.

The next chance for precipitation will then come in Sunday afternoon/evening into Monday. This precipitation will be developing from a low pressure over CO that had a frontal boundary stretching over the central plains. The models show rain developing along this frontal boundary and overrunning it to the north into SD. This is supported by the upper-level trough moving through the area aloft as well as the precipitation being in an entrance region of a jet. There is variability in the models as to how far north the rain gets, as it will be interacting with the high pressure at the surface over ND and SD. Additionally, the models vary the timing, track, and rainfall amounts. This will need to be something to keep an eye on in upcoming model runs, especially since there will be temperatures near freezing Sunday night into Monday morning when some of the precipitation could be occurring.

AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z FRIDAY/

Issued at 608 AM CDT Thu Oct 22 2026

Terminals KABR,KATY,KPIR,KMBG

VFR conditions are forecast through the TAF period. Light surface winds will switch to the south-southeast this morning and gust between 20 and 25 kts for most areas by late morning through the afternoon, strongest over KPIR/KMBG.

ABR WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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