textproduct: Hastings

KEY MESSAGES

- In the immediate short term (through around 8-9 PM), an area of showers/embedded thunderstorms will sweep across much of our forecast area (CWA) from northwest to southeast. The strongest activity could produce strong-marginally severe wind gusts up to around 60 MPH (anything this strong would favor the southwest half of our CWA).

- Thursday-Friday are all but "guaranteed" dry and seasonably- warm, with highs mainly 60s (some 70s south Friday). Although not truly windy days, it will be breezy enough out of the west-northwest to promote elevated to near-critical fire weather conditions each afternoon.

- Saturday remains dry, but our next stronger cold front arrives on the scene, knocking high temps back down into the 40s-50s with breezy north-northeast winds.

- Sunday-Tuesday, the forecast turns more "murky"/uncertain, as while confidence is high that Sunday-Monday will be our coldest days with highs mainly 30s, there is also less- confident (but potentially increasing?) signs of one or more rounds of at least light wintry precipitation Sunday into Monday (mainly snow, but possibly also some wintry mix).

DISCUSSION

Issued at 359 PM CST Wed Feb 25 2026

-- FORECAST CHANGES/POSSIBLE WEAKNESSES AND/OR BIG PICTURE COMMENTS:

- In the immediate short-term (late this afternoon-evening), just in the last 8 hours we've gone from having no thunderstorms in our official forecast (although this was discussed as a possibility in this product over the last few days), to now not only including isolated thunderstorms but also having SPC assign an official Marginal Risk (level 1 of 5) of severe to our far western counties (for the potential of strong/marginally-severe gusts up to around 60 MPH).

- Although still several days out and carrying the usual higher-end of forecast uncertainty, if anything latest models have trended more suggestive versus 48 hours ago (this forecaster's last shift) that especially Sunday-Monday could feature at least minor/limited impacts from wintry precipitation, with the overall highest chances (PoPs) currently focused Sunday daytime. For now, we've intentionally kept any wintry precipitation type as snow, but mixed types (sleet/freezing rain) cannot be totally ruled out either. It's certainly too early to hit the proverbial "panic button", but with Sunday now only 4 days out we decided that introducing this possibility to our Hazardous Weather Outlook (HWOGID) seemed warranted.

- As for fire weather concerns Thursday-Friday: At least for now it appears we should "escape" any outright- critical conditions that would necessitate Warning issuance. That being said, the potential for 25+ MPH gusts has increased for Thursday afternoon (mainly north of I-80), but fortunately relative humidity (RH) is forecast to bottom out slightly above our critical 20% threshold (this bears close watching though). For Friday afternoon, RH is more likely to drop into critical territory (15-20%), but thankfully wind speeds are currently expected to decrease as RH falls in the afternoon. So long story short: right now we are not forecasting the necessary overlap of BOTH wind gusts 25+ MPH AND RH at/below 20% to meet outright- critical parameters.

-- 7-DAY FORECAST CHRONOLOGICAL DETAILS (through Wed. March 4): - TODAY'S/CURRENT WEATHER SCENE AS OF 3 PM: Today's forecast has ended up being a little "trickier than meets the eye", both in terms of thunderstorm potential, but also wind/temperatures. In the big picture of the mid-upper levels, water vapor satellite imagery and short term model data confirm that a fast-moving/low amplitude trough is diving southeastward into/through our region. As was expected, this disturbance is driving an area of scattered rain showers that is just now starting to enter the far northern/western fringes of our forecast area, along with isolated/embedded thunderstorms.

At the surface, the main story today is that high temperatures will end up varying/ranging a bit more than expected across our CWA as a whole. While southerly breezes have boosted temps well into the upper 50s-mid 60s across roughly the southwestern 3/4ths of our CWA (even flirting with 70 in Rooks County KS), a more stubborn/easterly wind direction along with greater cloud cover is holding several of our far northern/northeast counties down in the 40s (several degrees cooler than forecast).

- LATE THIS AFTERNOON-EVENING (through midnight): By far the main story are the incoming showers/spotty embedded thunderstorms. Between now and mainly 9-10 PM scattered to localized more widespread activity will steadily track across our CWA from west-northwest to east-southeast. While the vast majority of this activity will be non-severe...and bring meager but needed rainfall up to around 0.10" in some places...there is JUST ENOUGH convective instability (as much as 100-200 J/kg) in the presence of strong shear and steep low-mid level lapse rates that any spotty thunderstorms could produce spotty wind gusts as high as 50-60 MPH. While SPC officially confined their Marginal Risk of spotty severe winds to our far western CWA, here locally we feel this risk could extend farther east- southeast...possibly even into our southeast zones. For what it's worth, there have already been several measured gusts of 50-60+ MPH just to our west over west-central/southwest NE (along with recent reports of lightning-induced grass fires in Lincoln County).

While the majority of showers/weak storms should exit our east/southeast CWA by 7-9 PM...a few spotty showers could linger as late as 10-11 PM.

- OVERNIGHT HOURS: Once any rain vacates, it should be a pretty uneventful late night as skies clear and light winds gradually turn more westerly. That being said, at least patchy fog development appears possible especially within counties east of Hwy 281 where the light winds would be last to take on more of a westerly/downslope component. Have refrained from hitting fog "too hard" at this time (it's not in our Hazardous Weather Outlook), but did introduce some very limited areal coverage of patchy fog to our eastern counties in official forecast products. Low temperatures were changed little...most areas aimed upper 20s-low 30s (except mid 20s north).

- THURSDAY-THURS NIGHT: This will be a dry, mild, sunny and somewhat-breezy day (especially north). Compared to previous forecast, winds/gusts were increased roughly 5 MPH (especially north). The overall strongest west-northwesterly breezes sustained around 15 MPH/gusting 20-25 MPH will focus mainly north of I-80 during the late morning through afternoon. High temps are still aimed low- mid 60s across most of the CWA. As mentioned above, afternoon RH is currently expected to remain JUST ABOVE critical fire weather thresholds, but this bears watching. Thursday night, light-but- steady southwesterly breezes develop, keeping low temps a bit milder than tonight (mainly low-mid 30s).

- FRIDAY-FRIDAY NIGHT: Although much of the morning-early afternoon will be a bit breezy (northwesterly gusts 20+ MPH), speeds should gradually decrease through the mid-late afternoon as surface high pressure noses in. As a result, this forecaster considers this to be the nicest looking day of the next week (also the warmest), with highs temps mainly mid-upper 60s (and some low 70s especially in our KS zones). Low temps Fri night mainly upper 20s-low 30s.

- SATURDAY-SAT NIGHT: This will be the proverbial "transition day". While likely dry (at least until late Sat night), a fairly strong cold front will pass through during the day, marked by breezy north-northeast winds. High temps will likely occur earlier in the day than usual, but are currently forecast to range from mid-upper 40s north...to upper 50s-low 60s south.

- SUNDAY-MONDAY: Far too early and too much inherent forecast uncertainty to go into much detail, but the bottom line is that chances for wintry precipitation re-enter the forecast. Although actual amounts of snow and/or MAYBE freezing rain do not currently appear high, both the ECMWF/GFS are increasingly suggestive that especially Sunday daytime could feature some wintry precipitation, with perhaps another round Monday daytime. Official precip chances (PoPs) are likely far too broad-brushed through these periods at this time, but have been raised to as high as 50% now for Sunday. Certaintly a few days to keep an eye on. Of higher confidence are colder temperatures, and highs for both days have trended down with mainly low-mid 30s most areas Saturday, and upper 30s-low 40s Monday.

- TUESDAY-WEDNESDAY: Various low-confidence precipitation chances continue in our official forecast (mainly 20-30% chances), as both ECMWF/GFS suggest that another upper system will approach/enter the Central Plains out of the Desert Southwest. With temperatures expected to warm back up (highs mainly back into the 50s), there is a higher likelihood that this should mainly fall as rain. Obviously a lot of time yet to parse out finer details.

AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z FRIDAY/

Issued at 537 PM CST Wed Feb 25 2026

For KGRI/KEAR Airports:

Main concern for this period actually comes right off the bat, as scattered showers continue to make their way across the area. Have a VCSH mention going for a couple hours, with a one hour tempo group right away as the heavier rain is currently working through. Also can't rule out some gusty, variable direction winds with these showers moving through. Once this activity passes to the ESE, VFR and dry conditions are expected through the remainder of this period, with little overall in the way of cloud cover. Light/variable winds continue tonight, turning more westerly in the pre-dawn hours, then northwesterly around midday through the afternoon hours. The afternoon will also bring the potential for wind gusts around 25-30 MPH.

GID WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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