textproduct: La Crosse

KEY MESSAGES

- Showers and storms slowly lift northeastward through the region through the day. Many locations east of the Mississippi River look to stay dry for much of the day.

- Rain becomes more widespread after sunset into the day on Monday. Overall rain amounts through Monday evening are expected to be around 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch with localized pockets of 1-2".

- Still trending warmer for the middle of the week, but the risk for storms makes the exact temperature forecast tough to pin down.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 1255 AM CDT Sun Jun 7 2026

Today - Mon: Rain Chances and Warming Up

High clouds have started to stream in from the southwest as a weak shortwave trough moves north into the Central Plains and Midwest region. As this moves north, it brings a resurgence of moisture, not that we were hurting for it across the region to begin with. Deep moisture transport will continue through the day with pwats by 00Z Monday in the 1.75-2+ inch range (in the 99.5 percentile to near max climatologically for the ENS) so this will be a juicy airmass to work with. Overall forcing will be not the greatest given the lack of any significant low level jet and a weak frontal boundary well to our south. The shortwave will have to do the heavy lifting forcing wise and since it won't pack much of a punch shear wise, we're not expecting much in the way of any severe threat with these showers and storms, even though moisture and instability will be readily available.

An area of showers and storms is expected to develop and expand north through the day today with the more significant batch of rain and storms likely coming after sunset through Monday as the shortwave moves overhead. Given the abundance of moisture, WPC has included portions of our area in their excessive rainfall outlooks for Sunday and Monday though both are largely marginal across the area. Any lingering activity over a given area may create some flooding problems but our rivers still have plenty of room and our soils can likely still handle a decent rainfall over the course of 2 days, even with the rainfall some have seen the last couple days.

Tue - Thu: Hot Temperatures and Severe Weather Wed, Thu(?)

As the shortwave responsible for today/Monday's rain moves off to the northeast, a wave of warmth will take it's place with upper level ridging firmly established behind it. A wave of anomalously high temps with the 850 mb thermal ridge will surge northeast into the Upper Midwest Tuesday into Wednesday. Heating in the lower levels and increased geopotential heights aloft will allow for temperatures Tuesday and Wednesday to lift into the 90s with highs Wednesday in the low to mid 90s areawide. Unfortunately, with this spread of warm air also comes higher dewpoints. Dew points Wednesday will likely be in the upper 60s to mid 70s, especially across northeast Iowa. This will lead to the potential for heat indices in the triple digits. Though the good news is that both ambient temperatures and heat indices have come down in recent forecasts for mid week so even though it will be hot, it could certainly be hotter!

Not only do we have the heat to worry about, we have some severe storm potential to contend with both Wednesday and potentially Thursday. A troughing regime is expected to develop out west earlier in the week and slide east over the course of a couple days. At the surface a family of surface lows will develop across the Dakotas with A cold front extending south/southeast. Out ahead of this, a highly unstable warm sector will develop amid the aforementioned upper 60s to mid 70s dew points and 90+ degree temperatures. It's a bit early to go into the weeds on exact CAPE values but early indications are that they could be pretty high (easily 3000+ SBCAPE).

The main limiting factor will be shear ahead of the frontal boundary but these details can be ironed out in the coming days for Wednesday. With the current forecast timing, it looks like the bulk of the threat for Wednesday would be across the eastern Dakotas and Minnesota with our area likely seeing activity later in the event as it (likely) becomes more multicellular. The idea then for Thursday is that the trough would continue to slide east with the threat area following along. Depending on the timing of the trough/front, this may leave our area a bit too far west with the higher threat more focused on the Great Lakes region. Time will tell but this will be something to monitor over the coming days.

Friday - Next Weekend: Temperatures Level Off

A cold front moves through Thursday into Friday and this should do wonders for our temperatures. While it's still summer and it will still be in the 70s and 80s for everyone, dew points will fall as drier air works in behind the front. Temperatures overall should be much more pleasant overall and previous forecasts had for late week into the weekend. Broad upper level troughing to our north will keep rain chances around for the end of the long term forecast (even with the drier air) as shortwave disturbances work through through the flow aloft. None of these look to be particularly impactful with generally weak forcing so will continue with the broad-brushed blended PoPs.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z MONDAY/

Issued at 1255 AM CDT Sun Jun 7 2026

VFR conditions are expected through at least midday if not the entire daytime hours as high-based showers gradually spread northeastward--though areas east of the Mississippi River will likely not see any rain until after sunset. After sunset, MVFR to IFR ceilings and more rain/storms are progged to spread northeastward, but confidence is low on the details of these clouds. Winds increase from the southeast at 10-15 kts by this afternoon and into tonight.

ARX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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