textproduct: Cheyenne

KEY MESSAGES

- Another round of near record warmth and critical fire weather conditions is expected to begin today and continue through Monday.

- A few high-based virga showers will be possible each evening, bringing the potential for gusty and erratic winds and isolated lightning.

- A strong cold front arriving Monday night will bring cooler temperatures and a chance for rain and snow Tuesday into Wednesday.

SHORT TERM /THROUGH MONDAY NIGHT/

Issued at 215 PM MDT Sat Mar 28 2026

Our warmer days will continue through Monday. Southeast Wyoming will continue to have rather gusty winds through this evening as upticks in the 700mb jet occur. These upticks combined with RH values below 15 percent wont do us any favors for our Fire weather conditions and even the smallest flame is likely to spark a quick uncontrollable grassland fire in these conditions. So the Red Flag Warning was kept for today and tomorrow. Another not so great factor is going to be our shower development this evening. With our stout dry layer over Southeast Wyoming most if not all of the precipitation will likely be evaporated before hitting the ground. There is some additional synoptic lift through a vorticity max swinging through as well as the later in the day timing that will help us have some minute precipitation hit the ground. But it doesn't look likely to be enough to really dampen the soil for the evening. These showers really increase the chance for a fire to develop due to dry lightning as these showers mature and develop a weak updraft to really polarize the ice crystals and produce lightning. Also due to nature of the evaporative precipitation, gusty winds much like a microburst will be likely underneath these showers. Those gusts may get amplified by our environmental winds to which brief but powerful gusts near 60mph may be possible. These showers are expected to be relatively short-lived and start to dissipate throughout the night. The winds also look to die down close to midnight for Laramie and east with some sporadic wind gusts near Rawlins and Saratoga possibly lasting through the night. By tomorrow/Sunday morning, these gusty winds will pick right back up and shift further east into the Nebraska Panhandle. Thats when the Red Flag warning will go into effect for the Panhandle as the gusty winds will increase their ability to spread quickly if any fires are sparked. These Red Flags warnings are set to expire Monday evening. The longevity of the Red Flag conditions can also be attributed to the poor RH recoveries of 30-40 percent overnight and dropping into the low teens the following afternoon.

LONG TERM /TUESDAY THROUGH SATURDAY/

Issued at 215 PM MDT Sat Mar 28 2026

The long-term period will feature more active and much cooler weather relative to the record-breaking warmth we have experienced recently. As the stubborn mid-level ridge axis continues to shift to the east, a cold front will move across Southeastern Wyoming and Western Nebraska early Tuesday morning. This is associated with a progged 1000 mb lee cyclone that will rapidly propagate well to our east, with a seasonably cold air mass establishing itself over Wyoming and Nebraska thanks to a 1028 mb anticyclone located over the Dakotas. In terms of how cold we will get, ensemble guidance shows daytime high temperatures on Tuesday being 30 degrees cooler than Monday's highs, translating to temperatures in the 30s and 40s.

In terms of moisture, there will be a favorable anticyclonic upslope regime in place on Tuesday in addition to weak 700 mb warm air advection. This can also be seen via isentropic ascent on the 300K theta surface, which should last well into Wednesday. In terms of QPF, LREF 50th percentile values are around 0.10-0.15" along the Cheyenne Ridge, with the Snowy and Sierra Madre Ranges being the favored spots for this event (0.20-0.25") Tuesday night into Wednesday. Precipitation type will likely remain as snow through this forecast period and amounts along and east of the I-25 corridor should remain light with values generally in the 1-2" range. Forecast soundings do show some mid-level dry air across SE Wyoming on Tuesday, so we might struggle to get much snow at the surface until we sufficiently moisten and cool the column. We will take anything we can get after this stretch of record- breaking warmth and little to no moisture.

Temperatures will rebound on Wednesday and will approach seasonal values in the 50s across Southeastern Wyoming and Western Nebraska as 500 mb heights rise ahead of our next closed low that will be moving in from the north and west sometime towards the end of the work week. Thursday will be the warmest day of this period with temperatures approaching 60 degrees east of I-25, and 40s and 50s further west.

Ensembles are in disagreement with the timing and amplitude of the system that will begin to impact the Rocky Mountain region Friday into the weekend. As this is still 6-7 days out, the trend will favor cooler, unsettled conditions with precipitation chances returning into the weekend. Details will become more apparent in the next few days once ensemble clusters come into better agreement.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z MONDAY/

Issued at 1124 PM MDT Sat Mar 28 2026

VFR conditions expected for the forecast period. Showers continue to move across southeast Wyoming, and may produce gusty and erratic winds at RWL, LAR, and CYS for the next few hours. Lighter winds will prevail in the early morning hours before picking up once again mid Sunday morning. Look for gusts generally 25 to 35 knots through sunset. A few virga showers Sunday evening may lead to another round of localized gusty winds.

CYS WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

WY...Red Flag Warning until 9 PM MDT Monday for WYZ417>423-425- 427>433. NE...Red Flag Warning from 10 AM Sunday to 9 PM MDT Monday for NEZ434>437.