textproduct: La Crosse

KEY MESSAGES

- Scattered light rain showers this afternoon, mainly east of the Mississippi River, transitioning to snow showers overnight. Little in the way of impacts are expected.

- An intermittent stretch of light to moderate snow begins Thursday afternoon and persists possibly as late as Sunday, which could result in periodic travel impacts. Total snow amounts of 2-4 inches over the course of the 2 days is looking increasingly likely (50-70% chance) with the bulk of the snow coming Thursday afternoon and night.

- After reaching near record highs today, temperatures slide back to around average for Wednesday. Much colder air follows for the weekend and early next week with morning wind chills in the teens to 20s below zero.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 130 PM CST Tue Jan 13 2026

This Afternoon - Tonight: Scattered Showers, Cooling Off

The combination of clearing skies, minimal snowpack, and ample mixing pushed temperatures close to record territory for locations south of I-90 early this afternoon. Stratus clouds sweeping in from the north will put an end to the daytime heating over the course of the early to mid afternoon, with a cold front racing southward out of Canada sending temperatures falling this evening. Boundary layer lapse rates steepen with the increasing cold air advection, resulting in the formation of scattered rain showers later this afternoon, transitioning to snow showers overnight. Overall impacts from these showers should be low. Blustery west winds this afternoon back to the northwest with gusts of 30-35 mph overnight before decreasing by morning. By sunrise, temperatures should be in the teens, a solid 20 degrees colder than where we started this morning.

Thursday Afternoon - Sunday: Intermittent Snow

Longwave ridging amplifying into an Omega Block along the West Coast will force a PV lobe to drop SSE from northwestern Canada and settle over the north-central CONUS as the eastern post of this block. The end result will be periodic bouts of light to moderate snow over the course of several days. There are two windows of opportunity for "higher" snow rates on Thursday and Friday afternoons attendant with two regions of low to mid- level frontogenesis. The Thursday afternoon period will have better moisture to work with and thus the medium range solutions are depicting amounts of 1-3 inches before midnight with not much for ensemble spread. This may result in impacts to the evening commute and will need to monitor trends over the coming days with the higher resolution guidance.

Friday morning could see a lull in the snow before the cold front arrives in the afternoon. This second wave of frontogenesis will be transient in nature and snow amounts look to be light, but increasing northwesterly winds and deeper mixing--notably west of the Mississippi River where the Extreme Forecast Index values are pushing 0.6 to 0.8--could still lead to impacts from blowing snow. Post-frontal showers look to linger well into the evening Friday before clearing out Saturday morning. Confidence in whether we see more snow Saturday night into Sunday is dependent on whether another PV lobe can scrape down the eastern flank of the trough, a solution that still has lower probabilities (20-30%), but these are in the increase.

Overall forecast snow amounts for the 2-3 day period do not appear to be much and front-loaded on the Thursday afternoon- night period. Most locales look to see 2-4 inches for snow between Thursday afternoon and Sunday, with 1-3 inches coming before midnight on Thursday.

Cold Weekend/Early Next Week

While confidence in exactly when the snow ends over the weekend is on the lower side, plummeting temperatures are a certainty. Highs on Friday will be reached during the morning/midday with falling temperatures during the afternoon. Highs on Saturday fall 15 to 20 degrees compared to Friday, struggling to reach the lower to middle teens through Tuesday. Exactly how low temperatures fall will be dependent on cloud cover, especially Saturday night as the surface ridge approaches. Roughly 10 percent of the NBM ensemble members have low temperatures of -10 to -20 for Sunday morning, a plausible scenario given the fresh snowfall and clearing skies. A similar setup could play out Monday night behind a clipper system (a solution more favored by the EC ensembles at this time).

AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z THURSDAY/

Issued at 535 PM CST Tue Jan 13 2026

Still expect ceilings to eventually lower into MVFR over the next few hours and persist through much of the night as gusty northwesterly winds continue. Flying conditions improve tomorrow as skies clear and winds reduce to under 15 knots. Looking ahead, next widespread issues would be Thursday into Friday as a round of snow occurs.

ARX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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