textproduct: Dodge City

KEY MESSAGES

- High confidence in widespread rainfall of 1/4 to 1/2" across much of west central, southwest, and south central Kansas (>75% chance).

- Outside of rain shower areas late Friday Night and early Saturday morning, areas of fog (possibly dense) are expected to develop

- High Wind and/or Critical Fire Weather event still looks to be on track for Tuesday afternoon across much of the High Plains, including our southwest Kansas region.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 1129 PM CST Thu Feb 12 2026

The incoming rainfall event is still on track and coming in to better focus with respect to finer details in timing and location of higher rainfall totals. Late this evening, the storm of interest was still well off the coast of Baja California, but it will be making its move northeast during the day Friday and accelerating toward southern Kansas Friday Night. As the initial mid-tropospheric potential vorticity (PV) anomaly moves northeast toward New Mexico on Friday, low level gulf moisture will advance northward through West Texas into western Oklahoma.

Light and variable surface winds will gradually become east- southeasterly by afternoon, and this will begin to tap in to the higher dewpoints. The 850-700mb layer will also moisten up to saturation Friday evening, and increasing warm/moist advection in the 850-700mb layer will eventually lead to scattered shower development. The scattered nature of showers will then become more numerous in nature as the overall upward vertical motion increases ahead of the mid level PV anomaly. The initial wave of showers will likely extend from the central/eastern Texas Panhandle northeastward through the Red Hills region, southeast of Dodge in particular. Latest short-term high resolution models are now showing some CAPE advancing into Barber and Comanche County to support some thunder, and the NBM did increase the Probability of Thunder element to around 30% in Barber County, leading to inclusion of thunder in the Wx grids.

Through the night, dewpoints will continue to increase through the 40s as far west as the Colorado line and up to I-70. Outside of showers/thunderstorms, areas of fog are expected to develop. The RAP and HRRR models are particularly aggressive with fog signal given their respective 1/4 mile visibility prog. There is also a pretty decent signal from the 00Z run of the HREF of fog. Using the HREF, a 4-hour window, 15-mile radius neighborhood probability of 1/4 mile visibility is 40-60% across much of southwest and west central Kansas with highest 60-80% probs confined to areas Dodge City to Meade and points east toward Pratt and Medicine Lodge. Given this signal, we have added Areas Fog into the Wx grids along with the rain showers. Given the showery nature of precipitation, visibility due to fog/mist will likely be highly variable in nature from midnight through the mid-morning hours Saturday.

Eventually, a mid level deformation axis will develop on Saturday, but the positioning of this is still quite uncertain. There will likely be an area within our forecast area that will see modest precipitation amounts from both the initial wave of showers late Friday evening/night AND the later deformation axis rainfall. Should locations see both, an inch of total rainfall is not out of the question. The 01Z of the NBM shows an axis of 30-40% prob of 1" exceedance from Jetmore to Ness City to Hays and La Crosse. For much of the rest of our forecast area, the 1/4" to 1/2" forecast is still a pretty good one as most areas will likely not be within the heaviest precipitation core of both rounds of rain.

Since much of the forecast attention is on the upcoming rain event, not much time was spent on the medium range into next week, however, there remains quite a bit of concern on Tuesday with respect to a High Wind event and even more so Critical Fire Weather. All three global model ensemble systems are locked in fairly well with an extended 250mb jet core of 160+ knots extending from Southern California through the Four Corners into the Central Plains, and given the broadly cyclonic curvature to the jet core, vigorous low level cyclogenesis would occur and very strong winds throughout the lower troposphere will develop out of the southwest. Once we get through this rain event Friday Night and Saturday, we will be really focused on Tuesday.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z SATURDAY/

Issued at 1129 PM CST Thu Feb 12 2026

Light winds will continue this TAF period ahead of our rainfall event. Since the lowering of ceilings and greater chances of rain are expected mainly late evening (and particularly after midnight) Friday, we have not introduced any low ceiling/visibility and rain at any of the terminals yet. The next synoptic TAF at 12Z will likely need to introduce these elements.

DDC WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.