textproduct: Hastings

KEY MESSAGES

- Fire weather concerns again take center stage today, with our entire forecast area (CWA) under a Red Flag Warning this afternoon-evening due to a combination of very low relative humidity and southerly winds gusting up to 30-35 MPH. Additional rounds of potentially widespread critical conditions look to materialize Saturday and possibly Monday (see separate Fire Weather section below for more details). - A strong cold front slices southward into our CWA late tonight into Friday morning, with wind gusts at least 40-45 MPH at times (especially during and for the first few hours behind the initial frontal passage).

- Friday is looking ever-more like the least-pleasant day of the next week, with moderately-strong north winds and temperatures that keep trending cooler with high temps now only expected into the 50s across most of our CWA, but still 60s to maybe near-70 in our south-southeast.

- Although SPC's initial Day 2 severe storm outlook technically still clips our EXTREME southeastern CWA with the edges of a Marginal Risk for late Friday afternoon-evening, an almost overwhelming consensus of various models strongly argues that any such threat should focus at least 30-50 miles southeast of our CWA altogether. As a result, here at the local level we have removed any thunderstorm chances from our far southeast counties, and also removed a severe possibility from our forecast, Hazardous Weather Outlook etc.

- Although in most years this would be considered a bit early for spring Frost/Freeze "headlines", with growing degree days (GDD) metrics putting us roughly THREE WEEKS "ahead of schedule" on plant growth this spring...we have now "green lighted" issuance of seasonal Frost/Freeze headlines starting with this weekend. A Freeze Watch has been issued for the majority of our CWA for late Fri night-early Sat AM, with additional headlines probably eventually needed for late Sat night-Sun AM too.

- Precipitation-wise next 7 days: While a rogue sprinkle or light shower cannot be totally ruled out Fri-Fri night, our official forecast is (unfortunately) dry Saturday-Tuesday, with still-rather-uncertain rain/thunderstorm chances then returning perhaps as early as Wednesday afternoon.

- Temperature-wise next 7 days: Solidly above normal highs in the 80s prevail today and again Mon-Wed. In between, Fri-Sat are by far the coolest days (highs 50s/60s), with Sunday then a "transition day" with highs mainly 70s.

UPDATE

Issued at 455 AM CDT Thu Apr 16 2026

-- FORECAST CHANGES OF NOTE, BIG PICTURE COMMENTS:

- Although we might still be playing "catch up" a bit with latest model trends, high temps for Friday were lowered a notable 4-7 degrees from previous forecast, as confidence grows that the majority of our CWA will not exceed the 50s behind a strong cold front.

- For any longer -term forecast related notes beyond Friday night please refer to the Key Messages outlined above, and for any specific fire weather details please refer to the separate section at the bottom of this product.

-- FOCUS SOLELY ON THE SHORTER-TERM/NEXT 48 HOURS (through early Sat AM): - CURRENT/RECENT WEATHER SCENE AS OF 4 AM: Briefly looking back at yesterday, as was fully outlined as a possibility...we indeed dealt with a few/spotty severe storms that impacted mainly the northeast 1/4th of our CWA during the morning into early afternoon (a few hail reports up to ping pong ball size). Thereafter, a smattering of weaker (but occasionally strong) storms affected various areas before all convection vacated our far eastern counties around 8 PM.

In the big picture of the mid-upper levels, water vapor satellite and short term model data confirm that the associated upper level low that brought yesterday's more active weather has since departed well-eastward into the IA/IL/WI border area, putting our local area under temporary, weak ridging. Meanwhile at the surface, low pressure is shifting into the western Dakotas, but so far our pressure gradient locally is still rather weak. As a result, breezes over our CWA are rather light...mainly under 10 MPH mainly out of the southwest, but with some stations reporting near-calm. Given pristinely clear skies and the lighter winds, overnight low temps are on track to bottom out somewhere in the 40s most areas, although some spots have nudged back up into the low 50s, while others have tumbled into at least the upper 30s.

- TODAY-THIS EVENING (pre-midnight): As our next large-scale upper trough gradually approaches from the Northern Rockies, low pressure will intensify at the surface to our west and north, thus tightening up the pressure gradient and bringing strengthening southerly winds. This morning, breezes will remain lighter and more west-southwesterly. However, by mid- late afternoon steady southerly breezes sustained 15-25 MPH/gusting up to 30-35 MPH will be established. Under plentiful sunshine, temps will get a decent boost from yesterday...and made little change to previous forecast with highs aimed 84-87 most areas.

This evening, winds will remain breezy but turn southeasterly ahead of a sharp, approaching cold front.

- LATE TONIGHT-EARLY FRIDAY AM: Around 3-4 AM, the aforementioned sharp cold front will begin to steadily slice southward into our CWA, making it at least halfway through by sunrise Friday, then making it through the remainder of our area by mid-late morning. As the front passes, most places will likely see up to a few hours of wind gusts up around 40-45 MPH (fortunately shy of High Wind criteria). Official overnight low temps (through sunrise) are a bit tricky and will depend on EXACT frontal timing, but are currently aimed from low 40s far northwest to upper 50s far southeast.

- FRIDAY DAYTIME-EVENING (through around midnight): Aloft, the large-scale trough arrives into the Central Plains, while at the surface the cold front just keeps charging southward. Precipitation-wise, while suppose a very spotty sprinkle/light shower cannot be totally ruled out within our CWA before sunset, several models are now almost insistent that the cold front will safely clear even our southeastern-most CWA before any severe thunderstorms have a chance to erupt by mid- late afternoon into the evening. Even post-frontal elevated instability no longer appears to be much of a concern, so we have all put closed the book on a severe storm risk in our CWA.

What WILL occur is a seasonably-cool day, with sustained winds commonly 20-30 MPH/gusts 35-40 MPH. Leaning on higher-res model data, high temps were lowered a good 4-7 degrees from our previous forecast, ranging from low 50s northwest (barely 50 for Ord/Gothenburg areas), mid-upper 50s central (including Tri Cities), and any 60s to MAYBE near 70 confined to our southeast 1/4th or so.

During the evening, models hint that some spotty/chilly rain showers could try getting into mainly our southern/southwestern CWA, but this looks quite minor if it even happens, and any precip should end before it would get cold enough to turn to a dusting of snow.

- FRIDAY LATE NIGHT-EARLY SAT AM: As skies gradually clear and winds gradually diminish (sustained speeds down to 10 MPH or less within a few hours before sunrise, the stage will be set for a seasonably-cold Saturday morning. Low temps are aimed from mainly mid-upper 40s northwest, to low- mid 30s southeast, bringing freeze concerns into play (and possibly some frost development, especially far west). To better coordinate with neighboring offices to our west that already issued Freeze Watches yesterday, we went ahead and joined in with a Freeze Watch for the vast majority of our CWA, except for a handful of far eastern/southeast counties that are currently expected to remain just above freezing or barely reach the freezing mark for a very short time.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 415 PM CDT Wed Apr 15 2026

It's been a steadily active day thus far, with a couple different rounds or bursts of isolated to scattered showers and thunderstorms moving through the area. This activity is being driven by steep low level lapse rates/heating-of-the-day beneath a weakening mid level low pressure system currently lifting E/NE across Nebraska. Had a few marginally severe storms earlier in the day, but deep layer shear has really dropped off under the mid level low to help offset any sort of modest increase in instability caused by warming into the 60s and 70s. Thus, don't expect anything more than maybe isolated/brief pea-sized hail in only the strongest of cores. Models haven't really been handling this activity very well (too dry and/or sparse), but conceptually speaking, would expect a rather rapid decline with loss of insolation this evening. Rest of the overnight looks quiet and seasonably mild as winds gradually turn to the S.

Main concern for Thursday will be fire weather - which is discussed in greater detail below. Going to be a warm and breezy one ahead of our next cold front. Bumped up highs 1-2 degrees for most spots given deep mixing, little cloud cover, and dry ground/drought conditions...and expect nearly everyone to reach at least the mid 80s. Typical warm spots could flirt with 90F.

Timing of our next cold front appears to be generally on track with recent forecasts...late Thursday night into Friday AM from NW to SE. Models continue to indicate fairly strong NW winds behind the front, with gusts generally in the 40-45 MPH, perhaps locally higher. Latest EPS gives 60-80% chances of gusts at least 40 MPH for large majority of the forecast area, and very little to no chance for gusts over 55 MPH. Thus, do not anticipate needing a High Wind Warning at this time.

Frontal timing is definitely not very conducive to organized convection, or even rainfall, for our area. By 21Z, model consensus is for the sfc front to stretch from ICT to STJ - or well to our SE. And with continued, steady SEward progression Thu PM, think even elevated convection will be tough to come by. Latest forecast maintains some 20-30% PoPs on Friday for extreme SE zones, but this could be generous.

Lastly...seasonably chilly air will filter in behind the cold front for the weekend. Saturday actually looks quite blustery and chilly - esp. in the AM - with continued breezy conditions and highs only in the 50s. Lows both Friday night and Saturday night are forecast to dip into the mid 20s to lower 30s both nights (coldest N/W of the Tri-Cities). This type of cold isn't overly uncommon for our area in mid-April (typical last freeze isn't until last week of April or first week of May for all but our far SE)...but with the incredibly mild late winter and early spring...many plants/trees and even general society is running 2-3 weeks ahead of "normal". Thus, will likely need some sort of mix of frost and freeze headlines this weekend to draw attention to the cold temperatures.

The cold will be short lived and we should quickly see a warmer weather pattern return ahead of a developing western United States trough early next week. That trough could bring us some mid week rain. We'll have to see as it's still a long ways off.

AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z FRIDAY/

Issued at 652 AM CDT Thu Apr 16 2026

For KGRI/KEAR Airports: Exremely-high confidence in VFR ceiling/visibility and precipitation-free conditions throughout the period, with clear skies giving way to plentiful high level cirrus overnight. That leaves wind as the main issue, with various changes in direction/speed necessitating several FM groups, including a fairly strong cold frontal passage at the EXTREME end of this valid period (11-12Z).

Wind details: Starting off this morning breezes will prevail southwesterly around 10KT. As the morning wears on, speeds will gradually increase as direction trends more southerly, with speeds through the afternoon commonly sustained around 20KT/gusts 25-30KT. This evening and into much of the overnight, speeds will remain elevated (gusts still up around 25KT) but direction will turn more south-southeasterly. Finally, although confidence in "exact" timing could be off slightly, the very end of the period will bring a brief shift to west-southwesterly winds before a strong cold front comes slamming through. This initial frontal surge could probably occur anywhere from 10-12Z based on latest higher-res models, but have aimed for 11Z for now, with north- northwest winds sustained around 20KT/gusting 30-35KT.

One one final wind-related note, especially the final 6-8 hours of the period could feature at least some degree of low level wind shear (LLWS) as south-southwesterly winds accelerate within the lowest 1-2K ft. AGL. However, given this is still well beyond the first 12 hours of this valid period, and given there is still uncertainty whether shear magnitude will solidly reach/exceed the typical 30+KT TAF-inclusion criteria, will defer to later TAFs to further assess/possibly introduce.

FIRE WEATHER

Issued at 455 AM CDT Thu Apr 1 2026

Though spotty pockets of beneficial rain occurred over the past few days across pockets (far from all) of our forecast area, it remains overall-dry and spring-green-up has yet to fully take hold in most areas. As a result, fire weather concerns remain in place on various upcoming days. The following focuses on fire weather details through these next five days (Thursday-Monday).

- THIS AFTERNOON-EVENING: Although winds will not be overly-strong this afternoon-evening, the combination of southerly speeds sustained 15-25 MPH and gusting as high as 30-35 MPH, in combination with afternoon relative humidity (RH) bottoming out 10-16 percent across nearly our entire forecast area (in the presence of another round of very warm temperatures with highs into at least the mid 80s), all adds up to another solidly-critical fire weather setup. As a result, our entire forecast area remains under a Red Flag Warning from Noon-Midnight. While the worst conditions will certainly occur this afternoon into early this evening, and RH will rise/recover fairly steadily after sunset especially in counties along/east of Highway 281, RH recovery will be noticeably slower the farther west one goes. In fact, especially our far western counties (namely Dawson/Gosper/Furnas) are not expected to see RH get back above 20% until at least 10-11 PM. As a result, the Warning extends later into the night than "usual", but again this is mainly to account for the slow RH recover in western areas. PLEASE NOTE: any fires that might get established this afternoon-evening will be subject to a strong northerly wind shift very late tonight into Friday morning.

- FRIDAY: Although it will be a moderately-windy day with north winds slicing southward behind a strong cold front (sustained speeds commonly 25-30 MPH/gusts to around 40 MPH), fortunately from a fire weather perspective, it also continues to trend increasingly-cool. In fact, our latest forecast only calls for highs in the 50s across at least the northwestern 2/3rds of our CWA, and mainly 60s at best in southeastern counties. As a result, RH is expected to hold up at least slightly above critical levels...bottoming out no lower than 25-35% most areas.

- SATURDAY: Although it will be seasonably-cool with high temps only in the 50s-low 60s, the airmass will be quite a bit drier than Friday...allowing afternoon RH to drop well down to at least 15-20%. As for winds, though not as strong as Friday, they will still be plenty breezy with northwesterly speeds generally sustained 15-25 MPH/gusting 20-35 MPH (overall strongest north of I-80/weakest in northern KS). As a result, most of our forecast area is again expected to meet critical criteria.

- SUNDAY-MONDAY: Sunday still looks like another "one day break" from critical fire weather concerns, as although RH is again forecast to bottom out 10-20%, winds should be lighter than the previous few days with even gusts mostly under 20 MPH. Unfortunately though, potentially critical conditions return again for Monday as warmer temperatures return with RH forecast s low as 15-20% in most areas and southerly winds gust at least 25-30 MPH.

GID WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

NE...Red Flag Warning from noon today to midnight CDT tonight for NEZ039>041-046>049-060>064-072>077-082>087. Freeze Watch from late Friday night through Saturday morning for NEZ039>041-046>049-060>063-072>076-082>085. KS...Red Flag Warning from noon today to midnight CDT tonight for KSZ005>007-017>019. Freeze Watch from late Friday night through Saturday morning for KSZ005-006-017.