textproduct: La Crosse

KEY MESSAGES

- Cooler for the weekend with a chance for flurries tonight into Sunday morning east of the Mississippi River.

- A return to at or above normal temperatures for the middle to end of the week.

- Next potential for snow comes mid-week as a pair of weather systems skirt through the region.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 315 AM CST Sat Feb 21 2026

The Weekend: Colder, A Few Flurries Tonight into Sunday

Surface high pressure gradually builds into the region over the course of the weekend, resulting in relatively benign weather into early next week. Colder air lurking upstream over the Dakotas likewise filters southeastward with this building ridge, but the bulk of the colder air remains confined further north. Nevertheless, areas that now have upwards of a foot of snow on the ground from our Friday storm could see lows fall off quickly if winds subside, with some of the colder 5-10% of the ensemble solutions dipping below 0 along this snow axis through Monday night.

A meridional 500-300-mb shortwave trough approaches today and slides through tonight with a compact vort lobe riding down its backside for the morning on Sunday. Forecast profiles show a modestly thick (2-5 kft) stratus deck moving through at this same time, with the saturation located right within the DGZ. There looks to be enough kinematic forcing aloft to squeeze out some light flurries from that stratus deck with the passages of these waves. The signal for any snow is quite weak from both the global and convective ensembles, so not expecting any accumulations.

Midweek: Warmer, Chances for Snow

Synoptic longwave ridging across the western CONUS begins to flatten and spread east as we go through the start of the week, which will have the effect of shunting our cooler air back to the north. Warmer air spreads east on the backside of our departing surface ridge Monday night into Tuesday, but our new snowpack looks to temper highs compared to what was forecast a few days ago. We should see highs at least return to near average, but seeing readings above the mid-30s will be tougher to achieve.

A pair of clipper waves are progged to slide down the crest of the ridge as it flattens, the first on Tuesday and the second following on Wednesday or Thursday. The first wave is progged to take a northerly track through northern MN/WI, grazing the northern parts of the forecast area, while the track of the second wave becomes less known as it depends on how far south the surface baroclinic zone slides in the wake of the first system. Overall, the global models are not depicting much for impacts at this time with the probabilities for >2" of snow only around 10-20% (at a 10:1 ratio) in the forecast area. However, these systems are still a ways out and given their dynamic nature, could still change over the next few days.

AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z SUNDAY/

Issued at 510 AM CST Sat Feb 21 2026

MVFR stratus along and east of the Mississippi River steadily clears out this morning, with VFR conditions through midday at most locates before MVFR stratus builds back in later this afternoon and evening from the northwest--lasting through the night. Winds will remain from the northwest at around 10 kts this morning, slowly increasing through the day and remaining around 10-15kts overnight with gusts of 20-25 kts.

ARX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

WI...None. MN...None. IA...None.