textproduct: Dodge City

KEY MESSAGES

- Quiet weather through Tuesday with seasonal temperatures (highs generally in the lower to mid 90s).

- Hotter temperatures by Wednesday ahead of the next front with 100s likely (60+% chance) most areas Wednesday afternoon.

- Best chance for numerous showers and thunderstorms Thursday Night, with NBM showing widespread 75th-percentile 24-hr QPF 1/4 to 1/2 inch through early Friday Morning.

- 6 to 10 Day period, roughly July 10-14, increasingly likely (60+% chance) to see consecutive 100 to 105-degree days as a very large upper level high develops across the central portion of the country.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 1243 PM CDT Sun Jul 5 2026

Short term weather across our southwest Kansas region will be tranquil as an upper level ridge of high pressure expands across the High Plains. The absence of strong mid-upper level flow across the Rockies will prevent a leeside trough with lowest pressure locked along the Front Range. This setup will keep best thunderstorm chances tied to the higher terrain through Tuesday. The greatest lower tropospheric thicknesses will also be across the Four Corners region north-northeastward through Wyoming, which will keep hottest temperatures farther west through Tuesday. Hotter temperatures will expand east by mid-week as the upper level ridge axis breaks down thanks to a subtropical jet streak moving through the Great Basin toward Colorado and Wyoming. A subtle short-wave trough within the main polar branch of the westerlies along the Canada border will aid in pushing a weak polar front south mid-week. This, along with the aforementioned subtropical jet streak will lead to enhanced thunderstorm chances Wednesday Night through Friday morning across western Kansas. The best 24-hr period for rain will be roughly 7 AM Thursday to 7 AM Friday (CDT), when the latest NBM shows 24-hr 75th percentile QPF in the 1/4 to 1/2 inch range. Peak rainfall potential where strongest storms would track across in the 1 to 1.75" range per 95th percentile QPF fields off the 13Z run of the NBM.

Once the mid-late workweek precipitation event moves east, we will likely see a much more pronounced summer subtropical high develop aloft, likely approaching or even reaching 600 decameters at 500mb at the center of the high. This anomalously large anticyclone in the mid-upper troposphere would most likely result in widespread 100 to 105 degree heat over much of the western/central Great Plains, including southwestern Kansas. This potential heat wave would probably commence around Saturday 11th and continue well into the following week. This gets just beyond our 7-day forecast period, but yesterday's CPC outlook for the 6-10 Day period (July 10-14) does call for 60-70% probability ("Likely" category) for above normal temperature. This above normal probabilistic outlook may even increase further as as more and more global model ensemble members lock in on this anomalously large high pressure pattern going into mid-July (synced with our climatological hottest 10-day period of the calendar year).

AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z TUESDAY/

Issued at 500 PM CDTSun Jul 5 2026

VFR expected through TAF pd. Light SE/S winds 5-15 kt.

DDC WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.