textproduct: La Crosse

KEY MESSAGES

- Our cold snap lingers through the end of the week with a return to at least seasonable temperatures for next week.

- Dry conditions likewise persist for the rest of the week with a few rounds of light snow possible Sunday and again midweek next week.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 1245 PM CST Wed Jan 28 2026

Today - Saturday: Cold, Dry

A pair of elongated lobes of surface high pressure slide down the mid-Missouri to mid-Mississippi River valley region through the end of the week. Mostly clear and dry conditions reign for the bulk of the region during this time, though several perturbations in the flow could bring periods of cloud cover, mainly to central and northern Wisconsin. We remain on the eastern periphery of these ridges, which keeps a continued fetch of polar air in place during this period. An upper level Hudson Bay low elongates and breaks down Thursday night into Friday, wrapping southward through the region and bringing a better chance of seeing more cloud cover.

The main forecast concerns for the period therefore revolve around low temperatures and cloud cover. The high resolution models have been too bullish with cloud cover over the past few weeks in these colder temperatures where ice crystals are present in the column all the way to the surface, so have leaned more the global models to handle the overall cloud forecast and short term updates driven by upstream cloud trends. Similar to last night, temperatures tonight in favored pooling locations could quickly plummet to between -10 and -20 under light winds and clear skies, but the potential for more clouds Thursday night may keep this process in check and have only made adjustments to the deterministic forecast for tonight.

Sunday - Next Week: Warming, a Couple Bouts of Light Snow

Upper tropospheric ridging amplifies across the western CONUS to end the week with a northern stream vort lobe cresting the ridge Friday night and cascading down the eastern flank of the ridge Saturday into Sunday. Given the small footprint of the wave, the medium range deterministic solutions have been struggling to nail down the exact structure of the surface features as it moves through the region on Sunday. Regardless of how this system shakes out, the impact look to be low given its rapid progression and decaying state. Nearly all (>90%) of the global ensemble members have at least a dusting of snow with the passage of this system with higher end solutions in the 1-1.5 inch range (20-30% of the members).

This system also heralds a large scale pattern shift as the mean longwave ridging expands eastward and shoves the Arctic air back northward. There may be some ripples in the overall temperature trend next week, but the general consensus in the ensembles is a steady warming through the week with highs in the 30s by week's end. Another round of snow looms for midweek, but details remain tough to pin down at this range other than amounts once again look to be of minimal impact.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z THURSDAY/

Issued at 1127 AM CST Wed Jan 28 2026

VFR conditions are forecast for much of the area through the TAF period with the exception of areas north of an EAU to ISW line where there is a 60-70% chance of seeing MVFR ceilings through this evening. A band of MVFR ceilings over northern Minnesota will need to be watched this afternoon to see how it holds together as it approaches the region overnight. Winds remain from the northwest at 10-15kts this afternoon, decreasing to around 5 kts tonight.

ARX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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