textproduct: Bismarck

KEY MESSAGES

- Light snow will taper off early this morning central and east, then sunny by this afternoon.

- Through the weekend and early next week temperatures return to seasonably mild north and unseasonably warm southwest.

- After a dry weekend, a more active pattern returns next week.

UPDATE

Issued at 938 AM CDT Fri Mar 27 2026

Broad surface high pressure is centered over the western Dakotas this morning, with some lingering clouds and scattered flurries across our eastern tier of counties. Winds will diminish through the afternoon as the high continues to drift overhead, and should be a pleasant although a bit seasonably cool of a day. Going forecast looks good for the day.

UPDATE Issued at 622 AM CDT Fri Mar 27 2026

Skies continue to clear over western ND with just a few areas of clouds. A few more clouds over central ND with a few flurries as well. We did add a mention scattered flurries through around 14 UTC to cover the patches of flurries over the central portion of the state. Otherwise no changes to the going forecast.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 207 AM CDT Fri Mar 27 2026

A weak shortwave exits the area this morning, then broad upper level ridging will remain over the Northern Plains through the weekend. A low amplitude positively tilted trough tracks through the Northern Plains early next week, with a more substantial wave impinging on the Northern Plains late in the week and into next weekend.

Currently, latest satellite imagery shows an upper level impulse tracking southeast through eastern ND. This is producing scattered snow showers over southeast ND with more isolated snow showers or light snow back into central ND. This activity is expected to exit the central portion of the state this morning. A small but compact surface high behind the system is resulting in breezy conditions with early morning wind chills in the single digits and teens most areas, but below zero over northwest ND. Definitely one of the colder mornings we have seen in a while.

We warm up quickly today with ample sunshine by this afternoon. Highs will range from the lower 30s around the Turtle Mountains to the mid and upper 40s southwest.

The weekend will bring seasonably mild temperatures to northern portions of the forecast area, to unseasonably warm temperatures in the southwest. Highs in the 60s through the weekend and on Monday may range from 15 to 20 degrees above normal in southwest portion of the state.

There are some concerns regarding fire weather this weekend and early next week, but at this time we do not expect fire weather conditions to reach near critical values. It will be quite dry in the southwest on Saturday with minimum humidities of 15 to 20 percent. However, a weak pressure pattern over the area will result in generally light winds. Stronger winds will reside over the eastern portion of the state, and although humidities do not drop to levels of those in the southwest, the southern James River Valley will see afternoon humidity values drop to 25 to 30 percent. The strongest winds here will be in the morning before we reach the lowest humidities of the day. In addition, a weak cold front drops south into this area during the afternoon raising humidities late in the day. Sunday will bring another day of low humidities over southwest ND but more like 20 to 15 percent, and winds are expected to remain light and variable. On Monday we do see stronger winds in the southwest with afternoon humidities again 25 to 30 percent, but increasing southeast winds should increase the low level moisture across the area.

A positively tilted mid-upper level trough moves through the Northern Plains in the Monday through Tuesday timeframe, with the leading edge of the warm advection precipitation arriving as early as late Sunday night. This should bring a quick shot of precipitation to most areas, beginning in the north late Sunday into early Monday, then spreading south and east as the cold front and upper level trough track through the forecast area. With the initial warm advection precip late Sunday night through Monday morning, the NBM is depicting a 20 to 50 percent probability of an inch of snow in the far northern tier counties along the International Border, with higher probabilities in Canada. Then probabilities of an inch of snow drop to less than 10 percent Monday afternoon through Tuesday morning as the cold front and upper trough swing through. Monday will probably be the warmest day of the week as we cool off behind the cold front and then see a brief warm-up on Wednesday ahead of the next system.

Regarding the late week/weekend system, there is still a lot of uncertainty amongst the ensembles. A cluster analysis centered on Wed-Thu and Thu-Friday shows two basic scenarios, but with nuances between then. In simple terms, there looks to be a colder/faster scenario with less of a split upper flow, and a warmer/slower scenario that shows more of a split flow. Both bring qpf into the local area, so at this time there isn't a clear cut wet/dry scenario. Both favor higher qpf and snow totals over northern portions of the the forecast area and into Canada. With the generally warm temperatures until the weekend, this makes sense regarding the snow totals. WPC is currently indicating a 5-20 percent chance of at least minor impacts in the Thursday morning to Friday morning timeframe. Again, a nod to the warmer temperatures until the weekend.

A more of a broader view of the ensemble surface pressures and surface low positions indicates a wide envelope of solutions in both the GFS/ECMWF ensembles and their AI counterparts. A look at the 50H features shows that this is in general a progressive system and although there is some indication of downstream ridging which could act to slow the system, there is also an indication of rapidly approaching upstream ridging, as well as some split flow characteristics. Therefore, at this time it doesn't look like a great opportunity for the system to evolve into a strong cyclone as it traverses the plains. It's certainly something we will need to monitor. The NBM ensemble 48 hour snow totals for Bismarck show medium probabilities of low snow totals of >1 and >2 inches, but there are also some low probabilities of more impressive totals of >8 and >12, thus there are some ensemble members depicting more impactful snow totals. So we certainly can't rule this out, this far in advance of the event. However, as of yet there is nothing of real concern showing up on the ECMWF EFI over our area regarding strong winds or qpf/snow totals. Stay tuned.

AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z SATURDAY/

Issued at 622 AM CDT Fri Mar 27 2026

A few areas of MVFR ceilings and some patchy flurries over the area through around mid morning, then VFR conditions through the remainder of the forecast period with mostly clear skies today and some increasing mid and high level clouds tonight. Light northwest winds over western ND and breezy northwest winds of 15 to 20 mph over central ND to begin the TAF period. Winds shift west to southwest through the day and diminish, then southerly this evening. A strong southerly low level jet also develops this evening and continues through 12Z Saturday across much of western and central ND. LLWS was included at all TAF sites from mid-late evening through around 12Z Saturday.

BIS WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.