textproduct: Gaylord

KEY MESSAGES

- Areas of dense fog tonight, particularly northeast lower MI.

- Mild through the weekend, slight chance for showers Sunday.

- Cooler, but likely seasonable, early next week.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 140 PM EDT Fri Oct 23 2026

Another night, another round of fog as sfc high pressure remains off to our east. South to southeast low level flow will advect moisture off Lake Huron, resulting in the best chance for fog near Saginaw Bay. Seems it could travel inland as well across the interior, and leak into eastern upper as well. Patchy fog possible elsewhere. Other than that, southerly flow and increasing heights on Saturday will lead to rising temperatures, and the start of a truly nice weekend for the end of October.

Above normal heights aloft, as has been the case, will remain over northern MI this weekend with southerly transport winds. Consequently, temperatures rise into the 60s to near 70 degrees each afternoon this weekend. Ridging gets beat down some by impressive upper trough across Ontario, and subsequent boundary will leak down into northern MI. Thus, as the energy to the north continues east, the cold front and cooler airmass slowly push into northern MI early next week. This feature will produce showers as well, particularly on Sunday and across eastern Upper Michigan, but leakage down into northern lower possible as well (light rain for those "lucky" enough). That being said, this cool down will feel cooler than it really is, with progged high temps hovering around normal for this time of year (upper 40s to lower 50s most areas).

Pretty energetic from Tuesday and through the rest of the week as multiple short waves/upper lows track from the Pac NW/Desert SW across the Upper Midwest. Meanwhile, the northern stream remains active as well. How these features interact and how far south any northern stream piece of energy digs will tell us how cool, or warm, it may get. Current ensemble guidance means are generally more warm (or above normal) than cool (or below normal) as the vast majority of guidance keeps the main troughing and subsequent seasonably cold air to the north. Additionally, light precipitation chances are possible, starting Tuesday into mid week as an upper low tracks into the Upper Midwest. How far west this feature tracks will determine how much precip we get. Farther west and we lose the influence, farther east, and more moisture and synoptic forcing produce more in the way of scattered showers. Latest GEFS prob for 24 hour precip >0.1" is generally low (10-40%) with higher probs across Upper Michigan, perhaps indicating that a farther west trajectory, at least initially, may be the preferred solution.

AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z SUNDAY/

Issued at 1130 PM EDT Fri Oct 23 2026

Think visbys/cigs will continue to bounce from LIFR to VFR to MVFR thru most of the night as locally dense fog moves in and out of TAF sites. Most consistent fog/IFR-LIFR more likely at CIU, PLN, APN. Winds should largely remain light/vrb to slightly SE (except for potential offshore breeze at APN), but may hang closer to 5-10kts at CIU. Winds pick up a bit more, generally 5-10kts or so from the SSE turning to SSW late in the day into the evening. Once fog burns off (most likely 13-16z), expect VFR cigs to prevail (bases around 10-20kft). LLWS could become a concern after 0z Sun.

APX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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