textproduct: Cheyenne

KEY MESSAGES

- Another round of strong northwest winds is expected over the High Plains today, with gusts to 65 mph expected in Niobrara county and the northern Nebraska panhandle. Gusts of 40 to 55 mph are expected elsewhere.

- Weak cold fronts this evening and again on Wednesday will bring a drop in temperature and a slight chance for light snow.

- More widespread colder and wintry weather is possible towards the end of the week ahead, but uncertainty remains considerable.

SHORT TERM /THROUGH MONDAY/

Issued at 314 AM MST Sun Jan 18 2026

No major changes were made to the forecast with this update. Stubborn northwest flow remains overhead as our area is sandwiched between a broad upper level low dominating central and eastern North America, while a powerful ridge remains fixed to the West Coast. The next clipper system is visible on GOES water vapor imagery, moving across eastern Montana at this hour. This upper level shortwave is accompanied by a surface low currently positioned over southern Canada, but an elongated surface trough extends southward into central Nebraska. Since this lifted away from the Laramie range earlier this morning, west to northwest winds have spread over the High Plains once again. The 700-mb jet aloft has already kicked up again behind the departing surface trough, with the latest mesoanalysis showing 700-mb winds of 50 to 60 knots over the northern panhandle. The atmosphere is nicely decoupled right now, so this is not making it to the ground in the absence of significant subsidence. Overall, the current warnings look good but confidence is quite a bit lower than Friday's event. Reaching the gusts of 60 to 65 mph at the surface will depend on a few conflicting things. First, the winds aloft will begin to gradually weaken after midday, but it will take some time to get mixing going. In addition, the best descent looks to be present this morning, whereas the arrival of the poorly defined cold front this afternoon will promote some ascent (and possibly a few snow showers) over the US-20 corridor. Due to this lack of confidence, the warning was left as-is, but we will still need to monitor the potential for strong winds to expand into the southern NE panhandle and Goshen county today, as winds aloft are marginally supportive. The most likely scenario is for fairly widespread gusts of 40 to 55 mph to dominate the High Plains today.

The upper level shortwave will push a weak mid-level front southwestward over the area this afternoon and evening, likely causing radar to fill in with some light snow showers. This will affect our northern zones mid morning into the afternoon hours, and then push south towards the I-80 corridor by around the late afternoon. For most, this will probably just be flurries, but a lucky few may see a dusting to a half inch of snow by Monday morning. The most likely spots for this would be the higher elevations of southern Wyoming, including the southern Laramie Range (I-80 summit) and the Snowy Range. This will be driven by weak overrunning on top of modest frontogenesis pushing through the area, with a boost on north-facing slopes thanks to dominate northerly low- level flow late this afternoon and evening. This system will knock temperatures down again tonight into Monday morning, but cold weather highlights are not expected.

Monday looks like another chilly and windy day, with highs a few degrees colder than seasonal averages, and stubborn northwest winds making yet another appearance. Winds aloft will generally be in the 35 to 45 knot range on Monday, supporting surface gusts of 35 to 50 mph or so. A few gusts to 60 mph can't be ruled out mainly along the Pine Ridge / US-20 corridor, but the probability is fairly low at this time (20%).

LONG TERM /MONDAY NIGHT THROUGH SATURDAY/

Issued at 315 AM MST Sun Jan 18 2026

The middle part of the week ahead will be a back and forth between warm and cold weather as a series of weak shortwave troughs continue to move through the area in the northwest flow aloft, with the ridge briefly recovering in between waves. Tuesday looks like a milder day as 700-mb temperatures recover to around -2 to -4C. Falling surface pressure over the I-25 corridor will likely kick up another round of high winds in the wind prone areas Tuesday morning, but due to the position of the surface trough more or less along I-25, we should see the high winds stay confined to the typical wind prone spots. For those locations, the current probability for high winds is 70% along I-80 and 40% along I-25 (lower due to uncertainty in the exact location of the surface trough). Further east, it will still be breezy to windy, which is expected to lead to elevated fire weather conditions as temperatures briefly warm up over the dry airmass. The warm up will be short lived, with another cold front expected to sweep through the area by Tuesday evening. A reinforcing front will arrive Wednesday morning. Both of these frontal passages will be capable of producing a surge of strong north to northwest winds along with a few snow showers. Ensembles are generally unimpressive with precipitation chances from either of these frontal pushes with only a handful of members showing any QPF at all. However, global models tend to be biased a little low for precipitation during these types of events (as we have seen numerous times this season already). Therefore, we will need to watch for a few snow showers driven by the frontogenesis moving through the area along/behind each of these two frontal passages. Moisture will be quite limited with the first front Tuesday PM, but moisture looks a little better with the second front during the day on Wednesday. After a chillier day on Wednesday, expect another warm up as 700-mb temperatures recover to around -2 to -4C once again. This will come with another possibility for some strong winds mainly in the wind prone areas, although probabilities are a little lower (40% for all 3 wind prone zones). In addition, we will need to watch for elevated to near critical fire weather conditions once again over the High Plains with low RH coincident with the warmup.

Forecast uncertainty increases considerably towards the end of the week. Ensembles are in pretty good agreement on a synoptic pattern, but this will be the type of pattern where small shifts in the exact placement of key features will result in wildly different outcomes for the weather across our area. On the synoptic scale, expect the persistent western ridge to weaken towards the end of the week, while at the same time, a strong lobe of vorticity rotating around the broad, powerful upper level low positioned north of the Great Lakes region drops southward. Due to the weaker ridge, this should be able to push southward a bit further west compared to the previous clipper systems recently. In addition, Pacific moisture looks likely to find a weakness in the ridge, so the upper level jet will not be quite as moisture starved. Pacific moisture and an arctic high sliding down from the north against the front range of the Rockies are both key players supporting active winter weather patterns for our area, but the devil is always in the details. The arctic frontal boundary is expected to stall somewhere nearby late this weekend into the weekend, and exactly where this occurs will determine whether we see some real wintry weather, or if we remain windy and dry.

AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z MONDAY/

Issued at 438 AM MST Sun Jan 18 2026

Gusty northwest winds will spread over the area once again today. Gusts of 40 to 50 knots are expected at CDR and AIA, with gusts of 35 to 45 knots at LAR, CYS, BFF, and SNY. A few brief gusts to 50 knots can't be ruled out. Winds will tilt more north as the day progresses. Winds will weak progressively through the evening hours.

A cold front sweeping through this afternoon will bring a few scattered light snow showers. Confidence in the coverage and location of this activity is fairly low, but a few PROB30 groups were introduced to account for this possibility.

CYS WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

WY...High Wind Warning until 5 PM MST this afternoon for WYZ102. High Wind Warning until 8 AM MST this morning for WYZ106. High Wind Warning until 5 PM MST this afternoon for WYZ110-116. NE...High Wind Warning until 5 PM MST this afternoon for NEZ002-003- 095-096.