textproduct: Hastings

KEY MESSAGES

- Scattered off and on Thunderstorms will impact the area tonight, as well as throughout the day and night on Thursday.

- While a marginally severe thunderstorm is possible with hail to the the size of quarters and winds to 60 mph, widespread severe storms are not expected.

- Cloud cover and scattered showers and thunderstorms will keep Thursday well below (nearly 20 degrees) normal for the end of June.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 342 PM CDT Wed Jun 24 2026

The Central Plains sits under weakly tilted northwesterly flow, that will become more zonal over time. This will cause the remainder of the work week to be active with scattered showers and thunderstorms persisting off and on throughout. Activity will begin to ramp up this evening, peaking during the day Thursday and tapering off overnight Thursday into Friday morning. The instability is better off to the west, which will keep the strongest storms away from the area.

As of this AFD issuance, there is a persistent thunderstorm moving southeast across the sandhills of Nebraska. High- resolution internal Ensemble WoFS shows this thunderstorm tracking south and east towards Grand Island and further southeast. This thunderstorm is really riding the instability gradient southeast and generally has about 500-1000 J/Kg to work with, meanwhile shear is plentiful.

Shower and thunderstorm coverage will increase into the overnight hours, which is supported by a variety of model solutions and it will persist in an off and on nature. Due to the coverage of showers and thunderstorms tomorrow, expect temperatures to be cool - highs in the 60s to low 70s...which is about 20 degrees below normal for the end of June.

Thunderstorm activity is expected to exit the area during the day Friday.

Moving into the weekend, a trough begins to dig in to the Pacific Northwest and the upper level pattern for the Central Plains switches to southwesterly as ridging builds into the Ohio valley by early next week. This pattern change will cause winds to become southerly and breezy at times, and for moisture transport to increase. Temperatures will warm back into the summer like temperatures with highs in the 90s expected for the weekend and early next week.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z THURSDAY/

Issued at 1244 PM CDT Wed Jun 24 2026

For KGRI/KEAR Airports:

Scattered cloud cover at both terminals this afternoon. This evening into the overnight hours, showers and thunderstorms are expected to enter the area from the west. The best chance for thunderstorms will be at KEAR between 02-06z. There is a fairly tight east-west gradient in thunderstorm activity, and while KGRI has the potential for thunderstorms, it is less than that of KEAR overnight. After the initial thunderstorms some stratiform precip may impact the terminals and linger overnight before dissipating before sunrise. Winds will remain light and variable, and when slightly stronger with a easterly component. There could be some scattered showers and thunderstorms beyond this TAF period into Thursday afternoon and evening, but this looks scattered in nature, and not well organized. Ceilings will be be VFR for much of the period, but some MVFR ceilings are possible with the thunderstorms.

GID WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

NE...None. KS...None.