textproduct: Aberdeen

KEY MESSAGES

- Temperatures 25-35 degrees above normal will continue through the weekend into early next week. Parts of eastern South Dakota and western Minnesota may flirt with record highs and record warm lows.

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

DISCUSSION

Issued at 227 PM CST Sat Feb 14 2026

A zonal upper flow pattern across the Northern Plains will maintain our dry and mild conditions the rest of this weekend into early next week. Temperatures will continue to reach 25-35 degrees above normal for mid February! Enjoy it while it's here because changes to the pattern still remain in the off'ing for the latter half of next week as an upper trough carves out a place across the western CONUS and sends periodic shortwaves through the region giving our area a better chance for precipitation and cooler temperatures.

A weak trough/frontal boundary slipped southward through the forecast area earlier today and basically only switched our wind direction to the north-northwest. Sfc ridging nudges from west to east-southeast across the area tonight into Sunday morning. We'll pick up a south to southwest wind component on Sunday as a weak sfc low organizes across the western Dakotas. 925mb temperatures top out from about +7C tp +9C in our eastern zones to about a +10C to +15C across central SD. This should give us another day with highs in the 50s to low 60s and near record to record setting high temps for February 15th. Pressure falls of 3-5mb/3hr across central/eastern SD on Sunday should help kick up a south to southwest breeze around 25 mph for parts of central/south-central SD Sunday afternoon. Adjusted dew point temperatures closer to the NBM25, temperatures up around the NBM90 and bumped up winds just a bit across south central SD. This put south central SD zones into RH values around 20 percent during the afternoon. Issued a Fire Weather Watch to highlight the elevated fire conditions across our far southern zones of Jones, Lyman and Buffalo Counties.

After the aforementioned low and associated frontal boundaries move through the region Sunday night and early Monday, we'll see a minimal cooldown on Monday, however high temps will still be well above normal. The first in a series of upper waves is progged to arrive around Tuesday into Tuesday night. An increasingly negatively tilted system looks to develop across the Northern Plains into Wednesday. Temperatures will be warm enough for just plain rain by the latter half of Tuesday into Tuesday evening. Colder air does eventually win out and we should get into a transition period of rain/snow Tuesday night into early Wednesday and then wind this system down with all snow by the latter half of Wednesday. The bulk of it still looks to affect more of our northern zones and places north and east of us in ND and northwest MN. NBM probabilities of seeing 2 inches or more of snowfall Tuesday night through Wednesday night range from 20-40 percent for locales along and north of the US Hwy 12 corridor with the highest of those probs across far northeast SD/west central MN. Southwest flow aloft is expected to persist the latter half of next week with the potential for additional upper waves and chances for precipitation. Temperatures will eventually cool back down closer to mid February normals with highs in the 20s and 30s and overnight lows in the single digits and teens.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z SUNDAY/

Issued at 1119 AM CST Sat Feb 14 2026

Terminals KABR,KATY,KPIR,KMBG

VFR conditions expected at all terminals through this next 24 hour forecast cycle. Light winds become more northwesterly through this afternoon before turning more south to southwest tonight into Sunday morning.

ABR WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

SD...Fire Weather Watch Sunday afternoon for SDZ045-048-051.

MN...None.