textproduct: Grand Forks

KEY MESSAGES

- Warm temperatures return next week, bringing near critical or critical fire weather conditions Monday thorugh Wednesday.

- An unsettled pattern bringing rain and Thunderstorm chances to the region Thursday, and rain and snow chances Friday into next weekend.

..Unsettled pattern late next week into the weekend

As southwest flow develops deeper moisture advection builds into the Northern Plains with NAEFS highlighting anomalous PWATs (exceeding 1") Thursday into Thursday night. EFI highlights that period for anomalous instability (values exceeding 0.8) though climatologically that isn't as hard to accomplish with even modest instability present. Depending on the evolution of the upstream low pressure building out of Colorado within this flow we may see organized periods of rain and embedded/elevated thunderstorms Thursday into Thursday night, and this will be a period to monitor. Depending on mesoscale details (clearing/frontal positions) strong effective shear could coincide with enough elevated instability for a few strong or even marginally severe thunderstorms.

As frost depth has reached zero based on observations in our CWA as of the last warm-up we are not approaching this rain event with hydrophobic tendencies as we normally would in early spring. Thus, it will take heavier rain totals in shorter periods to cause excessive runoff impacts as there could be at least some storage in soil. There is a signal in NBM for 1"+ rain totals (10-20% chance), however the signal for greater than 2" of rainfall is currently zero and those types of totals would likely be needed for at leas some flood impacts.

Ensemble spread increases regarding the evolution of the pattern, lowering confidence in precipitation coverage and measurable precipitation timing/coverage/amounts. The colder air settling into the region does raise the potential for wintry precipitation dependent on evolution/timing. There are some ensemble members that show accumulating snow potential and WPC pWSSI shows a 10-20% probability for advisory/minor winter weather impacts from snowfall. Higher snow rates would be required to overcome warmer ground temperatures and increase impacts and all details are very uncertain at this time and range.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z MONDAY/

Issued at 1145 PM CDT Sat Apr 18 2026

No major changes to this iteration of TAFs. VFR will prevail throughout the TAF period. Winds are currently out of the north, and will remain so overnight through much of Sunday. Late Sunday afternoon into the evening, winds will switch to out of the south at all terminals from west to east. Winds will remain under 12 knots throughout the TAF period.

FGF WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

ND...None. MN...None.