textproduct: Dodge City

KEY MESSAGES

- Quiet weather through Wednesday

- Hotter temperatures by Wednesday with highs around 100 along the KS/OK border

- Best chance for thunderstorms continues to be Thursday evening/night

- Warmer weather expected late weekend into next week.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 233 PM CDT Mon Jul 6 2026

Early this afternoon, the latest water vapor loop and RAP objective analysis fields showed a somewhat narrow ridge of high pressure aloft extending from the Arizona-New Mexico line north-northeastward across the Nebraska Panhandle. A small upper low was spinning slowly across the Ozarks region to our east-southeast. Western Kansas, in between these two synoptic features, was beneath quite a bit of subsidence through the troposphere leading to continued clear sky and large scale southeasterly winds at the surface 10 to 15 mph. This pattern will not change much through Tuesday, so sensible weather will not change much.

On Wednesday, the upper ridge will break down as increasing westerly winds in the mid troposphere impinge on the Rockies (albeit not all that strong). This will induce a weak leeside trough/low across far western Kansas late Wednesday, with increasing low level convergence likely leading to at least widely scattered thunderstorm development. North of the weak surface low, winds will be easterly, and the moist easterly upslope winds will favor thunderstorm development and maintenance across northeastern Colorado into northwestern Kansas later in the night. The best mesoscale convective system (MCS) signal is to the north of southwest Kansas Wednesday Night, and should this signal hold, would produce a sizable outflow boundary pushing south into southwest Kansas early Thursday. Later on Thursday and especially Thursday Night, another MCS would be likely given the zonal west-northwest flow aloft and post-frontal/post-outflow boundary moist upslope winds. The period 1 PM Thursday to 1 PM Friday still looks like the best 24-hour window for much of our forecast area receiving a modest amount of rainfall, even though probabilities of 1/2" or more are generally in the 15 to 30% range, higher toward west central and northwest Kansas. Depending on the magnitude of Thursday Night MCS, a repeat event is possible Friday Night -- farther south if Thursday Night's MCS is stronger and perhaps farther north if not. This level of detail is extremely difficult to predict even three days out.

The wetter pattern late Wednesday through early Friday will give way to a drier, hotter pattern going into the weekend and next week. A very large upper high will expand across the central CONUS in the 6 to 10 Day period, but there remain some questions just how hot it will get here in southwest Kansas, because the center of the expansive upper high, on average, will likely be north/northwest of us, such that southwest Kansas will be more within the deep easterly flow aloft, which does not necessarily equate to extended excessive heat across southwest Kansas.

AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z WEDNESDAY/

Issued at 500 PM CDT Mon Jul 6 2026

VFR is expected through TAF pd. Winds tonight will be SSE 5-10 kt. The winds will diurnally increase around 18Z through 00Z with SSE winds 15-20 kt and gusts around 25 kt.

DDC WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.