textproduct: Dodge City

KEY MESSAGES

- An active, wet pattern will continue through Thursday, with periodic rounds of showers and thunderstorms. Some storms will produce severe wind gusts, large hail, and locally heavy/flooding rainfall.

- Below normal afternoon temperatures will continue through Thursday.

- A distinct pattern change is expected this weekend and early next week, with much hotter afternoons, rain chances ending, and strong south winds.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 1234 PM CDT Tue Jun 23 2026

A complicated forecast regarding thunderstorms, with little confidence in any particular model solution. Has been an unusually convectively active morning, with significant/flooding rainfall. Radar and satellite imagery at noon showed this activity had either moved south or weakened greatly, with clearing in progress across western zones. Model solutions in this convective pattern are wildly out of phase and of little guidance. Thunderstorm redevelopment this afternoon through tonight will be a function of where stratus clears and instability can redevelop. Midday mesoanalysis shows the airmass over most of Kansas strongly convectively overturned, with near zero surface based CAPE, while a strong instability axis persists over far eastern Colorado. The various model solutions aside, logic suggests that storms will favor areas that destabilize the most over the next several hours, mainly west of US 83. To that end, backed southeast winds and dewpoints in the upper 60s near Springfield, Colorado/Baca County at noon suggests supercells may be near Elkhart at peak heating. At any rate, any thunderstorm that can develop through this evening will likely pose a risk for large hail and/or damaging wind. Some models that had previously forecast a strong MCS tonight, have since lost that solution, because they are focusing their development today, perhaps incorrectly. Suspect thunderstorms will focus on the western zones/eastern Colorado into this evening, with another MCS generating over SW KS tonight. SPC 15% severe wind/hail probability continues on the 1630z outlook, and this is sufficient until mesoanalysis and radar trends can be assessed more with time.

The active, wet pattern of periodic showers and thunderstorms will continue through Thursday. Intense midlevel high near 600 dm strength near El Paso midday Tuesday will change little in orientation through Thursday, keeping the WNWly midlevel flow and embedded shortwaves intact over SW KS, on the high's northeast periphery. Pop grids through Thursday continue to focus on the nighttime hours (7 pm - 7 am), as this traditional summer MCS pattern continues. Just like we are seeing today, small scale details, impossible to forecast well in advance, will determine specific thunderstorm location and intensity each day. Some storms will produce severe hail and/or wind, as well as locally heavy rainfall/flooding. Additional hydrology products are expected. Afternoon temperatures will remain well below normal through Thursday.

Beginning Friday, a significant pattern change is expected, as a longwave trough arrives in the Pacific Northwest. This strong trough will arrive in the northern Rockies by Sunday, forcing SWly midlevel flow to return to Kansas, along with dramatically hotter afternoon temperatures. NBM forecasts afternoon temperatures of 96-102 Saturday through Monday, in agreement with 12z MEX guidance. Rain opportunities will be gone after Friday, along with strong south winds.

AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z THURSDAY/

Issued at 555 PM CDT Tue Jun 23 2026

Surface and visible satellite observations across southwest KS show low-end VFR/high-end MVFR cigs in the vicinity of all terminals. Latest CONSShort suggests cigs will gradually lower to low-end MVFR/high-end IFR through the overnight time frame before recovering to VFR late in the period. Otherwise, current modest easterly winds aoa 12 kts will weaken to light and variable by sunset, and continue through 00Z Thursday.

DDC WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.