textproduct: La Crosse

KEY MESSAGES

- Temperatures will continue to warm up into early next week as most locations will see highs in the low to mid 50s from Saturday into Tuesday!

- Widespread precipitation chances (35 to 55%) return for the middle of next week.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 243 AM CST Thu Feb 12 2026

Warm Temperatures Into Early Next Week!:

The Upper Midwest will be in split flow from today through Saturday. When looking at ensemble and deterministic data, they all support a ridge in the northern stream and a shortwave trough traversing the southern Plains and then into the Ohio River Valley. While our region remains under the ridge, low level west to southwest flow will continue, helping to keep the warm air advection ongoing. With this warmth, EFI values of 0.7 to 0.8 are showing up across the CWA for both Friday and Saturday indicating that these temperatures on the higher side of climatological normal. As a result, high temperatures for Friday are in the upper 40s to low 50s for areas south of I-94 and the low to mid 40s for north of I-94. These temperatures warm up by a couple degrees for Saturday.

Heading into Sunday and early next week, upper level zonal flow takes over as the split flow shifts into a ridge for much of the central CONUS. This ridge shifts east into Monday and Tuesday and begins to break down, but before it does, warm air advection continues to push into the area as the low level flow remains out of the west to southwest, where the warmer air continues to be located. EFI values for the daytime highs are between 0.7 and 0.9 for the CWA, with highest values coming on Sunday. There is also a Shift of Tails of 0 for the parts of CWA on each day indicating there are some outliers. Now compared to yesterdays forecast, there are not as many outliers of 60 degrees at La Crosse or Rochester. This is due to a low moving overhead on Tuesday into Wednesday whereas in the last couple of days, this low was moving further north, helping to bring even warmer air to the region. Despite this slight southerly change of trajectory, the warm air remains in place. While there doesn't appear to be any threat to record highs at the moment given that high temperatures for Sunday into Tuesday remain in the low to mid 50s south of I-94 and the mid to upper 40s north of I-94, there is some potential for record lows to be broken on Monday night and Tuesday night as low temperatures are in the mid to upper 30s with some locations approaching 40F. Overall, the next few days look to be quite warm with temperatures 20 to 25 degrees above normal. This is shaping up to be a beautiful weekend for this time of year!

Precipitation Chances:

Dry conditions expected through Monday as the better forcing and moisture for Saturday into Sunday remains to our south. By Tuesday, as the ridge breaks down a low ejects out of the central Rockies and moves into the Upper Midwest. This will increase rain chances across the CWA. The probabilities for at least 0.1 inches of QPF falling between Tuesday evening and Wednesday evening are between 30 to 70% with the higher values north of I-94. Increasing the amount of QPF to 0.25 inches, the probabilities are between 20 and 40% along and south of I-94 and 40 to 55% north of I-94.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z FRIDAY/

Issued at 1127 PM CST Wed Feb 11 2026

VFR conditions should largely prevail over the next 24 hours. However, some valley locations, including LSE, may see visibility reductions overnight, particularly if a break in the mid and upper level clouds occurs. With upper level cloudiness on the increase, current thinking is that this chance is very low (5%). Otherwise, winds should remain under 10 knots and variable but with a more consistent southerly component developing over time.

ARX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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