textproduct: Hastings

KEY MESSAGES

- Seasonably cool and semi-active weather pattern continues for another couple of days.

- While the overall severe weather threat appears to be pretty marginal, a few strong/severe storms will be possible during the late afternoon/evening hours both today and Thursday.

- Return to more summer-like temperatures and humidity this weekend into early next week.

- After a few hot, dry and breezy days, a chance for thunderstorms returns to the local area during the evening hours next Monday and Tuesday.

UPDATE

Issued at 406 AM CDT Wed Jun 24 2026

Showers and thunderstorms rolling off the high plains impacted mainly western and southern portions of the forecast area overnight as they weakened after moving into a more stable environment. Additional activity west of the local area early this morning is expected to follow suit, weakening as they reach our western fringes, bringing mainly clouds and some isolated showers/non-severe thunderstorms through the morning hours.

Later today, expect mostly dry conditions to overtake the local area, albeit an isolated thunderstorm or two (as indicated in some of the CAMS) cannot be completely ruled out. That said, the better chances for storms will come during the very late afternoon through the evening hours as the next upper level disturbance begins to impact the local area. While instability is still fairly limiting, there remains sufficient shear to justify at least the possibility for a strong to marginally severe thunderstorm this evening/tonight, so continued with this mention in the morning HWO.

Additional shower and thunderstorm chances will then continue across the local area through early Friday morning, before the upper level pattern begins to shift - resulting in upper level ridging, warmer temperatures, dry weather and increasing breezes over the upcoming weekend and into early next week.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 430 PM CDT Tue Jun 23 2026

A shortwave disturbance moved through the area this morning and early afternoon and brought a broad swath of light to moderate rain showers. Fortunately, instability was lacking with this system and kept severe weather potential at bay. Subsidence behind this wave has allowed for some clearing skies and temperatures to rise into the 70s. This clearing may allow for a few showers or weak storms to pop up through early evening, but lack of stronger instability and lingering effects of the subsidence should keep most locations dry.

Next few days look to feature the same general mid to upper level pattern in which an upper low spins over the northern Plains into Upper MS Valley and ridging builds over the SW and W Coast. This should lead to zonal to NW flow for the central Plains. Modest and moist upslope flow should allow for daily thunderstorm development along the High Plains each afternoon, which will then roll E/SE during the evening and overnight hours with the mean flow and along a stout instability gradient. Appears the primary instability axis will remain mostly W/SW/S of the area each of the next few days, which should keep our severe threat fairly limited. Appears the best potential for scattered to widespread rain and embedded storms will be with a disturbance Wed night into Thu AM. It's late June and there's at least SOME elevated instability and shear, so the various Marginal Risks on the SPC outlooks make sense...but again, not expecting anything real organized or widespread for our local forecast area.

Upper pattern will undergo some changes late in the week, and especially this weekend, as the aforementioned upper ridging slides east in response to a new trough developing along the West Coast. So after several days of seasonably cool highs in the 70s to lower 80s, should see a significant jump in temps by Friday and esp. over the weekend. In fact, latest NBM gives widespread mid 80s to mid 90s both Saturday and Sunday - which will feel quite steamy given seasonably high dew points currently forecast to be in the upper 60s to around 70F. The relatively moist ground from recent rainfall and evapotranspiration from rapidly growing corn will probably support even higher values in the low to mid 70s for areas E of Hwy 281 towards the Hwy 81 corridor. Not sure this uptick in heat and humidity will necessarily rise to advisory levels (heat indices of 105+), and there will be some southerly breezes to help bring SOME relief...but it's a summer weekend, so keep in mind for those outdoor activities.

Generally speaking, the upper pattern may become more supportive for severe thunderstorms at some point in the Saturday night (low level jet/warm air advection) to Tuesday time frame as the western trough migrates into the Rockies and eventually the central and northern Plains. This low will likely force at least a weak to moderate cold front into the region Sunday night or Monday...which could then linger into Tuesday per recent deterministic and ensemble trends. This general evolution should support SOME overlap in seasonably strong deep layer shear associated with ejecting mid/upper jet streak and large reservoir of strong to extreme instability, somewhere in the region during this time frame. Now, does this overlap occur locally or perhaps further N...and what exactly will be the timing of the upper trough and surface fronts...these details still need to be worked out and are critical to pinning down sensible weather details this time of year. Machine learning guidance supports the idea of 2-3 day window of increased severe weather potential, but remains quite broad in it's footprint, and muted on any higher end probabilities. Again, something to monitor as we approach the busy summer weekend.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z THURSDAY/

Issued at 1221 AM CDT Wed Jun 24 2026

For KGRI/KEAR Airports:

Overall...VFR conditions anticipated for the next several hours before some near MVFR stratus works its way towards the terminals from convection to our west around 24/10-24/11Z. Skies will eventually return to prevailing VFR conditions by the mid to late morning hours with the next disturbance spreading a chance for SHRAs and TSRAs towards the terminals late in the day and into the evening hours Wednesday. Winds overall will be light...generally less than 12 KTS outside of any SHRAs or TSRAs...becoming predominantly northerly to northeasterly aft 24/15Z.

GID WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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