textproduct: Wichita

KEY MESSAGES

- Daily up and down temperature swings will be in store for Kansas over the next 5 days

- Light snow could affect parts of south central Kansas Monday morning

UPDATE

Issued at 413 AM CST Sat Jan 17 2026

A narrow fleet-footed band of flurries/light snow has developed in association with an upper level short wave racing southward across southern Nebraska early this morning. We will insert some light snow/flurries across central Kansas and parts of south central Kansas during the morning hours. No accumulation is expected.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 203 AM CST Sat Jan 17 2026

Polar airmass and associated surface high pressure will continue to build southward across Kansas today with colder below normal temperatures. Wind chills will be around zero for central Kansas early this morning and again Sunday morning. The cold air surge will be short-lived as the cold airmass core quickly shifts east of Kansas on Sunday with west/northwest downslope effects boosting temperatures. Next upper wave then drops southward across the northern/central plains for Sunday night into Monday down the backside of the deep meridional trough axis. This will force another surge of polar air southward across Kansas for Monday with daytime highs dipping below normal once again. Models show a signal of decent lift developing along a mid-level baroclinic zone extending from northeast Colorado across western Kansas towards south central Kansas Monday morning. Model soundings indicate that dry low levels could possibly be overcome by this lift which would allow some light snow to make to the surface, mainly affecting locations along and southwest of a Great Bend to Hutchinson to Wichita line. At this time model probability guidance is showing a 40 to 50 percent chance of greater than a tenth of an inch of snowfall impacting those areas. A repeat performance will occur again with core of cold air quickly shifting east of Kansas on Tuesday and westerly downslope boosting temperatures above normal.

A third push of cold air looks to arrive for Wednesday but magnitude of the cool down will be less compared to today and Monday. Meanwhile focus will then shift to the Friday night/Saturday period with longer range models highlighting a more robust surge of arctic air spreading south across the northern plains. We will continue to monitor model trends for this period with some potential for winter precipitation to affect parts of eastern Kansas.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z SUNDAY/

Issued at 1134 AM CST Sat Jan 17 2026

Strong northwesterly winds this afternoon will gust to between 30-35 knots at times. Spotty MVFR cigs in CNU will lift in the next hour. Winds will diminish around 00Z then turn southwesterly by 06Z. Southwesterly winds will increase above 10 knots by around 10Z in central Kansas and around 12Z for south- central to southeastern Kansas. Winds are expected to turn out of the northwest towards the end of the forecast period.

ICT WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.