textproduct: La Crosse

KEY MESSAGES

- Continued dry and pleasant for the remainder of the weekend with highs in the low 70s to low 80s.

- The next potential risk for showers and storms comes Tuesday/early Wednesday (20-50% chance) with rain not returning to the forecast again until next weekend.

- Seasonable temperatures continue for next week with highs in the mid 70s to mid 80s.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 1200 PM CDT Sat Aug 22 2026

Rest of Today - Monday: Dry and Seasonable

We find ourselves solidly embedded in northwesterly flow this afternoon as an upper tropospheric trough digs over the Great Lakes/Ohio River valley and a paired meridional ridge builds along the Front Range. This upstream ridge slowly migrates eastward over the next 24-48 hours, with the ridge axis over the High Plains on Sunday and central Missouri River Valley by midday Monday. The net result for the region will be continued dry and pleasant conditions through Monday. Highs should top out in the upper 70s to low 80s with a Canadian fetch dropping dewpoints into the 40s and 50s. Not bad for late August!

The only forecast concerns for this timeframe will revolve around any overnight/early morning valley fog, which looks to be confined to the Mississippi River tributaries tonight but could become more widespread Sunday night depending on how the upper level clouds pan out.

Tuesday - Wednesday: Storm Potential Returns

Medium range guidance continues to be in good agreement that our main window for precipitation in the seven day forecast will come between Tuesday and Wednesday mornings as a compact vort lobe crests the aforementioned ridge and slides across Minnesota and Wisconsin. There may be stronger mid to upper level unidirectional flow with this complex that could result in organized cell structures should the lower level thermodynamic fields line up. Early looks at some of the deterministic GFS forecast soundings reflect this notion with elongated NW to SE hodographs that would support all modes of severe convection. The devil is in the details at this stage in the forecast and, given the wide range of plausible outcomes, plenty can change over the next 2-3 days.

Latter Half of the Week: Dry Start, More Active for the Weekend

We return to northwesterly flow and dry conditions for the latter half of the week with no real signal for additional rainfall until next weekend as the ridge flattens and several waves push through. There is some signal for a more organized precipitation event in some of the longer range deterministic and ensemble solutions with some outliers depicting swaths of 1-2+ inches of rain for later in the weekend. That being said, these are the outlier (<10%) solutions and there is a wide spread in the track of this system at this range.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z SUNDAY/

Issued at 1200 PM CDT Sat Aug 22 2026

VFR conditions are expected for most locales through the TAF period, with the potential (20-40% chance) for IFR/LIFR fog in valley locations outside of the mainstem Mississippi River late tonight into Sunday morning. Winds remain from the northwest at 10-15G20kts this afternoon, falling to around 5 kts overnight and increasing to 5-10 kts for Sunday.

ARX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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