textproduct: Hastings

KEY MESSAGES

- Patchy frost may develop early this morning across mainly portions of Valley and Dawson Counties.

- Near critical fire weather conditions are expected this afternoon across mainly Dawson, Gosper, and Furnas Counties.

- Marginally severe storms may develop Saturday and Sunday with large hail and damaging winds being the main threats.

- The highest rain and storm chances (70% to around 95%) will be Sunday and Sunday night.

- High temperatures over the next 7 days will range from the 50s to the 70s. Low temperatures are expected to range from the low 30s to low 50s.

UPDATE

Issued at 159 AM CDT Fri Apr 24 2026

Cooler air continues to move into south central and central Nebraska and north central Kansas behind the cold front. Northerly winds are across the area with temperatures expected to cool into the 30s and 40s overnight into the morning hours. Patchy frost may develop across mainly portions of Valley and Dawson Counties early this morning due to temperatures near freezing, light winds, and sufficient moisture. Winds across the area will transition towards the south and southeast this afternoon as the surface high associated with the cooler air moves eastward. High temperatures today are expected to be in the 60s and 70s with sunny to mostly sunny skies. Near critical fire weather may develop this afternoon (mainly in Dawson, Gosper, and Furnas Counties) due to low humidity values and wind gusts around 20 MPH. An upper level shortwave will move overhead this evening into tonight with upper level lift increasing. Showers and thunderstorms may develop (15% to around 60% chance) with the highest chances west and north of the Tri-Cities area this evening through tonight. Severe weather is not expected. Low temperatures tonight will range from the upper 30s to the upper 40s.

A cold front with increasing rain and storm chances (up to 70% to 85%) is expected on Saturday. Some of the storms that develop along the front may become marginally severe Saturday afternoon and evening with hail up to the size of quarters and winds up to 60 MPH being the main threats. Rain and storm chances increase again on Sunday (70% to around 95%) as another shortwave moves overhead. Some storms may again become severe with fairly high CAPE and wind shear; however, mid-level lapse rates will be marginal at best. Rain and storm chances decrease on Monday but remain present across at least a portion of the area each day through Thursday. High temperatures each day Saturday through Thursday will generally be near or slightly below normal (highs in the 50s to the 70s).

DISCUSSION

Issued at 433 PM CDT Thu Apr 23 2026

-- FORECAST CHANGES OF NOTE/BIG PICTURE COMMENTS:

- Really no big changes of note from previous forecast.

- General comments on weekend severe storm potential: By FAR our main concern over the next 3-4 days will be assessing the possibility for at least a few severe storms mainly Saturday and/or Sunday afternoon-evenings. One of the main uncertainties involves IF (and if so) how far north a surface warm front might lift into our area. Especially on Saturday, it appears the main warm sector/instability axis should focus south of our CWA, keeping any possible severe threat in our CWA more along the lines of elevated hail storms. Sunday is obviously less-clear (and will likely depend somewhat on what happens Saturday night), but the warm front might TRY lifting north into our CWA, perhaps resulting in a somewhat- greater/more surface-based severe storm threat. Like Saturday though, any higher-end severe threat appears it should in theory focus at least slightly south of CWA. Plenty of details still to sort out, but at least at this Day 3-4 range, it's probable that any severe threat we do see should focus within the southern half of our CWA (counties south of I-80 and down into northern KS).

-- 7-DAY FORECAST CHRONOLOGICAL DETAILS (through Thurs. April 30): - CURRENT/RECENT WEATHER SITUATION AS OF 330 PM: Although it was a very close call (severe storms developed within 10-15 miles of our extreme eastern CWA), as has been expected here for at least 24 hours now, the southwest-northeast axis of severe storms along the cold front fired up SLIGHTLY east-through-southeast of our CWA...with numerous Warnings issued/ongoing within southeast NE/western IA...and probably soon to be eastern KS. Meanwhile, back here in our area, the cold front/dryline unsurprisingly packed a little more punch than expected in terms of wind speeds (gusts commonly 25-35 MPH out of the west-northwest) and also very low dewpoints/relative humidity (RH). Fortunately as of this writing we are not aware of any wildfire starts in our CWA, but a Red Flag Warning remains in effect CWA-wide through 9 PM (see separate fire weather section below for more).

In the big picture of the mid-upper levels, the southern fringes of disturbance extending southward from a large closed low spiraling over Montana northward into Canada is passing through the Central Plains, which in concert with the well-defined surface cold front/dryline has fired up the aforementioned severe storms to our east.

Under a varied mix of mostly sunny to mostly cloudy skies (any clouds of the mid-high level variety), high temps this afternoon are on track to top out 76-83 degrees across most of the CWA (if anything just a touch warmer than forecast).

- THIS EVENING-OVERNIGHT: Our CWA remains dry, with any severe storms moving ever-farther away to our east-southeast, and any potential for chilly rain/snow remaining well to our northwest along the NE/SD border. Skies through the first part of the night will average partly cloudy, but trend toward mostly clear with time. At the surface, breezes will remain gusty for a time this evening as they turn northerly behind a weak cold front (gusts still 25-30+ MPH likely until closer to midnight). However, late tonight into early Fri AM, northerly breezes will diminish to no more than 5-10 MPH. Low temps are aimed from mid 30s far north/west- central (mainly Gosper/Dawson up through Valley/Greeley counties), while most of the remainder of our CWA should bottom out upper 30s-low 40s. In the aforementioned coldest areas north/west, some patchy frost cannot be ruled out, and this has been added to our official forecast and Hazardous Weather Outlook. However, with any frost expected to be limited in coverage and duration, opted against a formal Advisory.

- FRIDAY DAYTIME: Confidence is high that our entire CWA should remain dry through at least 7 PM, with sunny skies gradually giving way to some clouds drifting in from the west by late afternoon. At the surface, the day starts with north-northeasterly winds around 10 MPH, then a period of variable direction around mid-day as a high pressure axis slips through, then followed by a gradual increase in southeasterly breezes mid-late afternoon into early evening. The strongest breezes with gusts 20+ MPH should focus within our southwestern quadrant or so (near-critical fire weather possible). High temps were nudged upward a few degrees, now aimed 70-75 most places, and any cooler upper 60s mainly in our extreme north.

- FRIDAY EVENING-OVERNIGHT: While most of our CWA most likely stays dry, especially roughly the northwest half of our CWA stands at least some chance of seeing isolated/scattered showers and a few weak thunderstorms as the first in a parade of several weekend upper waves moves in. Winds will average 10-15 MPH out of the east-southeast through the night, which combined with increasing clouds/spotty precip should keep low temps at least 3-6 degrees milder than tonight, with our latest forecast calling for low-upper 40s most areas.

- SATURDAY DAYTIME-SUNDAY NIGHT: It's still a touch early to start doing a "deep dive" into the details of severe storm potential (see paragraph above in the "big picture" section for some general stuff), but the bottom line is that these 48 hours look to be relative active in terms of rain/thunderstorm potential as a series of upper disturbances track through the Central Plains in persistent west- southwesterly flow aloft, with the overall-strongest shortwave trough arriving into our area late Sunday daytime into Sunday night. While both days/nights will surely feature some rain and storm potential (again any possible severe storms would mainly favor our south half), Sunday into Sunday night feature the overall-highest chances for widespread measurable rain (widespread 80-90+%) per our latest forecast. Given the expectation that our CWA should mostly remain north of the main warm front/instability axis to our south, high temperatures are only forecast to reach mainly mid 50s-mid-60s Saturday, and low- upper 60s Sunday...but again this depends on "exact" frontal position, how stuck we are under lower clouds etc. As earlier stated, there is decent potential for at least most of our CWA to pick up at least 0.50-1.00" of rain...hopefully this trend continues.

- MONDAY-TUESDAY: While spotty rain chances remain in our forecast, this mainly looks like a dry time frame (at least beyond Monday AM), as the weekend system passes off to our east. For sure, convective instability departs our region, ending any possible severe storm threat from the weekend. High temps remain seasonably- cool...mainly aimed 60s both days.

- WEDNESDAY-THURSDAY: Still considerable uncertainy at this time range, but there are hints of increasing rain chances (at least of the scattered variety) as a few disturbances drop down into our region out of the west-northwest (large scale upper flow transitions to more northwesterly during this time). Convective instability and any associated severe storm threat appears fairly meager. High temps currently projected mainly mid-upper 60s on Wednesday, then only near-60 on Thursday.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z SATURDAY/

Issued at 1226 AM CDT Fri Apr 24 2026

For KGRI/KEAR Airports:

VFR conditions are expected to retain across the period with only a few mainly high-level clouds filing in from the west Friday afternoon/evening. Winds, currently out of the north tonight, will very soon lighten and become variable across the rest of the night/morning hours. During this period of time, wind directions will turn clockwise with direction later settling out of the southeast Friday evening. The southeast winds Friday evening may occasionally gust as high as 20-25kts. No precipitation is expected.

FIRE WEATHER

Issued at 433 PM CDT Thu Apr 23 2026

- REST OF TODAY-EARLY EVENING: A Red Flag Warning continues for our entire forecast area (CWA), and has been extended one hour longer into the evening...now until 9 PM. As often happens in deeply-mixed, post-frontal regimes, wind speeds have at least slightly "overachieved" previous forecast expectations, with sustained speeds commonly at least 15-25 MPH/gusts consistently 25-35 MPH out of the weset-northwest. The overall-strongest winds have focused within the northwestern two-thirds of our area, but even far southeast areas will see sporadic gusts to around 25 MPH. As for relative humidity (RH), it has easily dropped below our critical criteria, with the majority of our area reporting 10-15 % (localized lower). Especially between 7-9 PM, winds will shift more northerly (versus westerly), especially within our Nebraska forecast area.

- FRIDAY: Although outright-critical conditions are not currently anticipated, roughly the southwestern quadrant of our CWA appears it will experience near-critical fire weather conditions especially from mid-afternoon into early evening. This will be due to the combination of southeast winds gusting at least 20 MPH, and relative humidity falling to at least 20-25 percent.

- BEYOND FRIDAY: Some good news on the fire weather front! Although not necessarily "in the clear" for the spring season, it appears we catch at least a several-days break from critical fire weather concerns. This will be due to a varied combination of cooler temperatures, higher dewpoints/RH (especially over the weekend), along with intermittent and potentially somewhat widespread soaking rain potential (especially this weekend).

GID WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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