textproduct: Aberdeen

KEY MESSAGES

- Temperatures 20-25 degrees above normal will continue through the weekend. Parts of eastern South Dakota and western Minnesota may flirt with record highs.

- Precipitation chances (60-80%) return Tuesday. Rain is expected initially, transitioning to snow Wednesday and Thursday.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 114 AM CST Sat Feb 14 2026

Upper-level pattern will remain in place through the weekend, bringing well above normal temperatures to the area. Still expecting near-record highs over northeastern South Dakota today. As it stands with this latest forecast, the daily records at the Aberdeen, Watertown, and Sisseton climate sites will be in jeopardy today. There is a weak signal for some mid to high clouds in the afternoon to early evening that could potentially limit heating just enough to fall short of the records, so those sites could go either way at this point. These higher temperatures will potentially cause some elevated fire weather concerns over central South Dakota on Sunday. Winds will still be fairly light with gusts below 20 knots, and humidity will bottom out around 20 percent. At this point a Red Flag Warning is not out of the question for Sunday, but with conditions remaining marginal no product has been issued at this time. Highs in the 50s are expected through Monday before the upper-level ridge begins to propagate eastward.

As the new upper-level regime arrives, a low pressure center will develop, bringing precipitation to the Northern Plains for the middle of the week. QPF has trended upward over the past 24 hours, with ensemble medians now sitting at over half an inch through Friday morning for parts of northeastern South Dakota and western Minnesota. "Worst case" scenarios (90th percentile values) now sit upwards of 1" of liquid equivalent. Precipitation values in both cases decrease as you move southwest across the state. Precipitation type will be dependent upon near-surface temperatures, which are expected to gradually decrease through the week in accordance with upper-level height falls. With that in mind, the expectation is that precipitation will begin as rain on Tuesday afternoon, transitioning to a wintry mix overnight Tuesday into early Wednesday, before finally transitioning to fully snow Wednesday afternoon. The heaviest QPF looks to be in that transition zone, so determining snowfall amounts remains tricky at this time. However, low SLRs (less than 10:1 on Wednesday) will likely help limit snowfall totals, and would lean towards a lower end solution of just a couple of inches in total at this time.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z SUNDAY/

Issued at 1145 PM CST Fri Feb 13 2026

Terminals KABR,KATY,KPIR,KMBG

VFR conditions and light winds will continue over the next 24 hours.

ABR WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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