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KEY MESSAGES

- Fog diminishing through this morning.

- More cool nights with fog into next week; perhaps some frost possible again tonight.

- Very quiet into early next week.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 227 AM EDT Sat Sep 26 2026

Pattern / Forecast Synopsis:

Rex block and associated surface high pressure retrograding overhead, and to remain in place through the weekend into next week. As such, dry and ever so progressively warmer daytime highs into the 70s, and modest diurnal swings will lead to cooler nighttime lows in the 40s and lower 50s for most.

Meanwhile, vintage El Nino coded longwave troughing currently setting up shop across the Pacific Coast will lead to a potent return flow of tropical Pacific moisture within an active subtropical jet into the Four Corners region, with tropically influenced shortwaves ejecting into the southern Plains. Much of this moisture to be suppressed to our south by a combination of both the rex blocking overhead and a rather unimpressive northern stream wave pattern through midweek... until a more potent northern stream wave zips into the upper Midwest and brings just enough of a draw of the deeper moisture northward into the region to perhaps introduce some scattered rain chances around midweek.

Details:

Will continue to contend with some fog across the region through the morning... and perhaps some localized frost potential in the colder interior locales that manage to bottom out near / below 35 degrees. Much of this to scour out through early morning, with a warm and sunny afternoon resulting as highs top out generally 68 to 75 degrees amid light NE flow. Another cool night tonight with temps perhaps dipping into the upper 30s in colder interior locales, but most other places probably wind up anywhere from the low-mid 40s, perhaps low 50s along the immediate lakeshores. Current thinking is that frost potential will be muted tonight, perhaps occurring on a localized scale across the interior cold spots. Warmer days ahead Monday and Tuesday with highs perhaps making a run into the upper 70s in places. Should be noted average highs this time of year are generally 61 to 68 degrees.

Aforementioned Pacific moisture plume to really struggle reaching into the region until the middle or end of next week, and considering the fickle nature of systems, I remain more pessimistic than optimistic in regard to us realizing an appreciable amount of rainfall from this feature. Largely split flow should limit the northern jet stream's influence in drawing this moisture northward into our neck of the woods, but a continued active subtropical jet should produce wave after wave of convection and tropical downpours across the Four Corners into the southern Plains, leaking into the central Plains by early next week (Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Kansas certainly look to see the brunt of these rains, amounting well in excess of 7" in places, and I would be unsurprised to see amounts winding up well higher than that across TX and OK). More potent northern stream feature to pass into the upper Midwest Tuesday into Wednesday, which should finally aid enough in drawing that deeper moisture northward. Anticipation is that continued southern / central Plains activity will bottle the best moisture pooling across that region, while just some scraps of moisture get ingested by the aforementioned northern stream wave.

Timing of this feature's passage through the Great Lakes and northern Michigan will dictate whether or not this is a meaningful, convectively charged and appreciable amount of rain during the day / evening, or a whimpering drizzly disappointment of a rain that passes through at night and accomplishes nothing much more than annoying everybody with uncomfortable amounts of humidity (clearly I'm not emotionally biased). That all being said, guidance seems to highlight the Wednesday - Wednesday night timeframe to favor best rain chances. Certainly a lot of different factors to consider with this pattern's evolution, so won't be overly aggressive in rainfall messaging aside from mentioning "shower chances" at this juncture... because if this feature loses its convective elements with a nighttime passage, any stratiform rain will have a boatload of drier air to overcome, and top-down saturation processes will be a tall task without a deeper moisture surge.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z SUNDAY/

Issued at 1052 PM EDT Fri Sep 25 2026

Efficient radiational cooling owing to clear skies and calm winds has already lead to patchy FG/BR development across parts of northern Michigan -- including at PLN and MBL. More significant VSBY restrictions are expected with time tonight into early Sunday morning with the potential for drops to 1/4SM or less. FG/BR will dissipate quickly after sunrise as daytime mixing ensues, bringing VFR conditions back to northern Michigan into Sunday evening. Light NE winds around 5 kts are anticipated through the day Sunday.

APX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

MI...None. MARINE...None.