textproduct: Cheyenne

KEY MESSAGES

- Gusty winds will continue in the wind prone areas today with a few gusts to around 60 mph expected.

- A weak cold front passing through this evening will bring scattered rain and snow showers into early Wednesday morning.

- Elevated fire weather concerns will be present daily through the weekend due to breezy to windy conditions, continued mild temperatures, and low humidity.

- Widespread strong winds are possible across the region Thursday through Saturday, with the best chance on Friday.

SHORT TERM /THROUGH WEDNESDAY NIGHT/

Issued at 400 AM MST Tue Jan 13 2026

It's a very mild night once again across the area today, as breezy conditions and plentiful mid to high level cloud cover keep this morning's low temperatures near average mid-January high temperatures. GOES satellite imagery shows cloud cover spreading over the entire area in the exit region of a strong jet streak in the persistent northwest flow aloft. We are currently under the right exit region, corresponding to synoptic descent, which is helping to maintain breezy to windy conditions through the night. While 700-mb winds and 700-mb height gradients are unimpressive this morning, we do have fairly potent surface pressure gradients across the typical gap wind areas. The latest mesoanalysis shows Craig to Casper 850-mb height gradients of at least 60-m and Arlington to Bordeaux MSLP gradients of around 5-6 mb. These parameters would generally support high winds in the wind prone areas despite somewhat unfavorable northwest wind direction aloft. As a result, another High Wind Warning was issued for the Arlington and Bordeaux areas through noon today. Most gusts should be in the 45 to 55 mph range, but a few periodic gusts near 60 mph are expected. We will also need to watch the I-80 summit for a possible expansion of this warning, but decided to leave the zone out for now due to conflicting signals. The MSLP gradients depicted in most model fields across the zone appear sufficient for high winds, but the 700- mb gradients and wind speeds remain lackluster through the day. The I-80 summit is typically less sensitive to the surface pressure gradient in reaching 60+ mph, but overall this is a fairly low confidence forecast.

Today will be another mild day for the area, but the increased cloud cover should knock down highs by a few degrees compared to yesterday. We will also be watching the progression of a vort-max pushing southward on the western flank of the broad upper level trough encompassing much of the central US. This feature is expected to nudge a weak back-door cold front into the area. The combination of frontogenesis, low-level convergence between a region of NNW flow and a region of WNW flow, and modest warm air advection overrunning the stalled frontal boundary is expected to support increasing coverage of precipitation this afternoon and evening. Expect this to start near the US-20 corridor around early afternoon, and then push slowly south and west as the frontal boundary struggles to push itself against the mountains. Despite this being technically a cold front in mid-January, the air-masses on both sides of the boundary will still be fairly mild for this time of year. Temperatures will remain so warm that areas below about 5000' in elevation can expect to see all or mostly rain with any precipitation that manages to fall. Above 7000', this will be all or mostly snow, whereas the elevation range from 5000 to 7000 ft can expect a mix of rain/snow as snow levels gradually drop through the evening. PoPs and QPF were increased with this forecast package, as Hi-res models are quite aggressive with precipitation coverage and amounts today. This follows the general trend this season of these marginal cold fronts initially looking dry, but then managing to produce fairly widespread light precipitation once they get into the short range. Precipitation is likely to be banded in nature, so isolated areas could see over 0.25" liquid precipitation, but the coverage of such totals is expected to be quite low. The most favored areas for precipitation will be inside roughly a triangle cornered at Laramie, Douglas, and Kimball. This is where the front is expected to stall as it pushes against the Laramie Range. The most aggressive ensemble suite (the HREF) gives most of this area approximately a 50% chance of 0.1" or more of liquid, although other ensemble systems (e.g. NBM and REFS) have probabilities around 10 to 30%. The Laramie and Snowy Ranges, as well as portions of the I-25 corridor mainly in Laramie County will have a chance for some travel impacts due to snow. Due to some uncertainty in the placement of banded precipitation, probabilities for 1" of snow remain fairly low (around 30% for the I- 80 summit and the I-25 corridor north of Cheyenne). We will need to monitor this potential through the day today.

A few rain and snow showers will linger into Wednesday morning as the stalled frontal boundary gets pushed back to the east by the western ridge re-strenghtening. Temperatures will remain around 10- 15F above average for this time of year, but should be a bit cooler than Tuesday. Gusty northwest winds will remain present for yet another day.

LONG TERM /THURSDAY THROUGH MONDAY/

Issued at 400 AM MST Tue Jan 13 2026

The amplified western ridge / eastern trough pattern will continue to dominate the synoptic weather pattern into the weekend. The next weather maker of concern will be another vort-max / shortwave trough diving down from the north on Thursday, followed by a stronger shortwave Thursday night. Ahead of these systems, we should manage another warm day on Thursday with 700-mb temperatures cresting Thursday morning around +2C. This will then quickly crash towards a minimum of around -10 to -12C on Friday morning. Currently, this system is expected to have very little moisture. NAEFS mean precipitable water values drop to near the climatological 10th percentile on Friday, indicating an extremely dry airmass. Still, we will have some lifting present Thursday night through Friday night as mid-level frontogenesis moves into the area. Therefore, some light snow showers will be possible during this period. The probability of any accumulation is quite low, but there may be some radar echoes and flurries spotted. The NBM has essentially 0 PoPs in for this period, but this may need to be nudged upward if models continue the trend this season of only picking up on this frontal shower activity at the last minute.

The main concern with these features will not be the precipitation though, as another round of strong winds is increasingly likely. A strong northwest to southeast pressure gradient will push in Thursday evening, and likely won't dissipate until Saturday morning. This gradient will not be well aligned with our gap wind areas, so the wind prone areas are only showing up with approximately a 20 to 40% chance for high winds at Arlington and Bordeaux at this time. However, LREF mean 700-mb wind speeds exceed 70 knots over a large portion of the Nebraska panhandle early Friday morning with modest synoptic descent over the entire area (aside from perhaps some narrow ascent associated with the frontal boundary). It is always quite difficult for the High Plains to hit High Wind criteria at night, but most models continue to show the strong winds continuing into the day on Friday. Forecast soundings show mixed boundary layers up to around 725-mb in the Nebraska panhandle, with wind speeds exceeding 60 knots in this layer. Scottsbluff, Alliance, and Chadron all have a ~60% chance of exceeding 60 mph on Friday, and a 20-30% chance to exceed 70 mph. These probabilities are quite high for this lead time especially outside of the wind prone areas. We will also need to watch the I-80 summit, as some models (e.g. the GFS) have 700-mb winds exceeding 70 knots. NBM probabilities for gusts exceeding 80 mph are around 30 to 40%. Near the mountains, this will be a bora wind event with much colder temperatures expected compared to our other high wind events so far this season. Most of the area can expect highs in the 30s on Friday. Despite the cold temperatures, extremely low dewpoint values will keep the RH fairly low. We will need to watch for grassland fire weather danger during this event.

Winds should finally come down Saturday morning, but expect to remain breezy to windy through Sunday as well as temperatures moderate back to the 10-15F above average we have seen so much of this season. The broad west coast ridge will continue to block any moisture from the Pacific into next week, with nearly all ensembles remaining completely dry through about the 21st of January.

AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z WEDNESDAY/

Issued at 437 AM MST Tue Jan 13 2026

Gusty winds will return once again today, with northwest winds gusting 30 to 40 knots at all terminals mid morning through the evening hours. Expect the wind direction to become more northerly as the day progresses.

A cold front arriving this afternoon will lead to the development of some banded rain and snow showers. Brief MVFR conditions are possible if these move over a terminal. Precipitation type will likely be rain at Nebraska terminals, snow at KLAR (and KRWL if anything falls) and a rain/snow mix at KCYS. IFR cannot be ruled out, especially at KCYS.

CYS WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

WY...High Wind Warning until noon MST today for WYZ106-110. NE...None.