textproduct: Des Moines

KEY MESSAGES

- Elevated fire weather conditions in southern Iowa today due to warm and windy conditions. Elevated fire weather conditions on Tuesday, especially western and southern Iowa, with another day of warm and windy weather.

- Scattered showers, a few storms Tuesday evening.

- While it will not be as warm Wednesday, drier air and breezy winds will result in elevated fire weather concerns.

- Rain/snow potential Thursday into Friday morning

- Turning breezier Thursday night into Friday with much cooler, seasonal conditions Friday into the weekend.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 242 PM CST Mon Feb 16 2026

In some locations in the state, record high temperatures have already fallen this afternoon with another hour or two of warming to go. GOES-East imagery shows just a few streaks of high clouds, but otherwise there is plenty of sunshine over the state. As has been the case the last few days and mainly in southern Iowa today, dewpoints have lowered below forecast and with the breezier winds there, has led to elevated fire weather conditions. There have been a handful of satellite detected fires with the most notable fire in Fremont County with a smoke plume visible on satellite at this hour.

As we head into tonight, clouds will increase and this will keep overnight lows above typical daytime highs for mid February in the upper 30s to middle 40s. A few models had shown the potential for fog toward sunrise Tuesday, but those models have largely backed off in part due to dry, low level air along with winds that increase towards sunrise. This increase in winds is in response to the pressure gradient tightening ahead of surface low pressure approaching from the Rockies. This low will come about by a lead shortwave trough that will kick out ahead of the western US longwave trough on Tuesday. Ahead of this low, there will be a surge of low level theta-e advection that will boost temperatures and low level moisture content with dewpoints rising 5 to 10 degrees well into the 40s to even low 50s in southern Iowa. Winds will be breezy as mentioned with boundary layer mixing occurring, but fairly shallow (1000 to 1500 feet) with top of mixed layer winds between 30 and 40 mph. Sustained winds may sporadically near 30 mph and will have to monitor for possible wind advisory. While there will be clouds streaming overhead, especially in the morning, this mixing would tap into 925mb temperatures that are similar if not 1 to 2 degrees higher than today. This would keep highs well above normal with temperatures making a run into the low 70s in southwest Iowa and the 60s elsewhere except northeastern Iowa. There are competing scenarios for temperatures tomorrow. One has low stratus moving in with the NAM keeping conditions much cooler with highs more in the 50s areawide. This seems like a very low probability outcome at this point and if it were to occur would be over northern and possibly eastern portions of the state. The other scenario is that the clouds move out by afternoon in western Iowa, and this could yield deeper mixing and thus higher temperatures, lower dewpoints and resultant relative humidity, and stronger winds than currently forecast. There have been plenty of grass and field fires over the last week that have kept volunteer fire departments busy. Fire weather conditions on Tuesday will again be elevated over at least western and southern Iowa and overall windy conditions could lead to fast fire spread despite relative humidity values in the 40 or 50% elsewhere in the state.

As a cold front moves into the state Tuesday night as the aforementioned low tracks near the Iowa/Minnesota border, there looks to be enough moisture to develop scattered showers and even a few thunderstorms over central Iowa Tuesday evening. These storms will become a bit more likely as they move eastward across central Iowa late evening into eastern Iowa in the first few hours of Wednesday morning. The storms are likely to be elevated based on forecast soundings with a few to several hundred J/kg of instability. The same soundings show a dry layer between 900 and 750mb that moistens as the front and associated storms near a given location. This diminishes downdraft CAPE values rather quickly. The only thing noteworthy on convective allowing model (CAM) wind gust fields is the stronger winds on the edge of the model reflectivity. We saw this occur both in model and reality last year where CAMs are picking up on breezier winds as air subsides around the storms. All looks below severe limits so the general thunder from the Storm Prediction Center is tracking with our local thoughts.

Temperatures on Wednesday will begin their slide toward cooler conditions, but will still be in the 50s and 60s. Breezy winds will be present, especially over southern Iowa, and with drier air behind the cold front that moved through Tuesday night, another day of elevated fire weather conditions is expected. As the longwave trough begins to move eastward later this week, another shortwave trough will round and arrive ahead of it. Surface cyclogenesis will occur over Colorado and move eastward passing through northern Missouri or southern Iowa later Thursday into early Friday. Ahead of the surface low, much of the precipitation will be in the form of rain, but as colder air arrives Thursday night, the rain will change to snow. The surface low track has not locked in and thus brings variability to the location of the precipitation shield along with thermal properties of the profile. What can be said with some level of confidence is that there is a weather system later this week that will likely contain wintry (rain/snow) precipitation with highest amounts for Iowa in some northern portion. How much snow remains to be seen on how the track and evolution of the low (passing through quickly vs closing off and slower) and this can vary by each model and within subsequent model runs. It does look like breezier winds develop Thursday night into Friday as the low pressure passes through the region. Further, much cooler conditions closer to seasonal levels will settle in for Friday and the weekend.

AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z WEDNESDAY/

Issued at 547 PM CST Mon Feb 16 2026

VFR conditions will persist through much of the period before stratus potential develops over parts of the area Tuesday afternoon. The wind is diminishing overnight with a boundary extending over north central Iowa with easterly wind north and southerly wind south. The boundary will gradually lift north with a transition to southeast wind during the period. Gusty south to southeast wind then is expected from late Tuesday morning and into the afternoon. Confidence in the aforementioned stratus is low enough to only mention SCT sub 3kft cloud mention with no MVFR introduced at this time.

CLIMATE

Issued at 536 PM CST Sun Feb 15 2026

Forecast and Record High Temperatures for Select Central Iowa cities on Monday, February 16...

=========================================== | Monday | Period | Fcst Record/ | of City | High Year | Record =========================================== Mason City 57 63/1981 1903-Present Waterloo 61 62/1981 1895-Present Des Moines 65 66/1981 1878-Present Ottumwa 66 65/2017 1923-Present ===========================================

DMX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.