textproduct: Dodge City

KEY MESSAGES

- A strong cold front will move through western Kansas tonight bringing strong post frontal winds

- Significantly cooler temperatures for Tuesday and Wednesday with a potential frost/freeze in our western zones Thursday morning

- Increasing probability of rainfall accumulations of 0.5-1 inch in parts of western Kansas and snowflakes could be mixing in near the Colorado border Wednesday morning

DISCUSSION

Issued at 1250 PM CDT Mon May 4 2026

18Z upper air and surface analysis shows a large trough over the Great Lakes and northern plains with an intensifying sub tropical jet over the desert southwest and an upper low off the Pacific coast. A 1002 mb surface low is around Garden City and has been slowly moving south and east through the morning hours.

Tonight model trends have the trough in the northern plains moving south which will give momentum to a stout cold front. Frontal passage in western Kansas will be between midnight and sunrise and with the upper level lift provided by the subtropical jet the surface low will move into northern Oklahoma and deepen to around 996 mb. Post frontal winds are expected to quickly increase to 15- 25 mph with gusts over 40 mph potentially for most of the morning hours on Tuesday and likely will continue into the afternoon. Spotty rain chances will be located mainly along the I-70 corridor where the better mid level lift setup will be. POP chances will be 20-30% with QPF values of a couple of hundredths are anticipated. It will be significantly colder on Tuesday as the cloud cover, cold air advection, and northeast winds will make it difficult for diurnal heat. Highs should be a good 30 degrees colder than highs on Monday with mid to upper 50s.

Wednesday short term and ensemble trends continue to show a higher probability of rainfall across much of southwest Kansas. Upper level dynamics have the subtropical jet streak winds increasing to 120-130 kts over the central plains and increasing lift in the mid levels starting in northwest Kansas Tuesday night. This area of lift should move into southwest Kansas Wednesday morning. 850 mb temperatures are forecast to be around 0 to -1 (C) Wednesday morning and areas along the Colorado border may see some snowflakes mixing in with the rain fall. With the warm ground snow accumulations are not anticipated but what falls as snow could amount to a few tenths. The bigger story is the rainfall as ENS and GEFS output in the various models have a pretty consistent bullseye of higher QPF roughly north and west of an Elkhart to Dodge to Hays line. NBM probabilities of greater than 0.5 inch reflect this too with a 60- 90% of receiving greater than 0.5 inch. Probabilities of 1 inch of rain have also come up in our far northwest zones as we have 10-30% chance along and west of a Syracuse to WaKeeney line.

Wednesday night into Thursday morning the main upper trough and lift should start to exit the region and the rainfall will end. With a 1024 mb surface high building in on the backside of the trough we should see winds diminish and skies clear during the night. With little warming in the low levels expected on Wednesday we will see the potential for a frost across much of western Kansas Thursday morning as lows are forecast to be 30 degrees or below along and west of a Liberal to Ness City line. NBM probabilities of 70-100% of less than 30 degrees also suggest the higher likelihood of a frost/freeze.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z TUESDAY/

Issued at 1218 PM CDT Mon May 4 2026

A strong cold front will move through western Kansas tonight and post frontal winds will pick up immediately out of the northeast. Time frame of the frontal passage will be around 03Z at HYS and 05-07Z for GCK, DDC, and LBL. Winds will increase to 15-25 kts sustained with gusts over 30kts that will continue through 18Z Tuesday. Post frontal clouds will also increase and ceilings will fall through the night to below 10 kft by 12Z. At this point all the terminals should stay in VFR flight category through the time period. Light rain is possible around HYS between 03-09Z.

DDC WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.