textproduct: Wichita

KEY MESSAGES

- Seasonal temps for today into Saturday with a strong cold front ushering-in much colder air for Sunday.

- Quick warm-up to start the work week, with widespread highs in the mid and upper 50s for Tuesday.

- Dry conditions expected through the next 7 days with no winter events on the horizon.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 254 AM CST Fri Dec 5 2025

Currently have a series of upper impulses in play across the CONUS. One is tracking across western ND/SD with another piece of energy moving into western MO. Meanwhile, water vapor satellite imagery is showing an additional impulse sliding across the Tennessee Valley.

Some upper energy is expected to quickly track out of the Northern Intermountain today and into the Central Rockies by later this afternoon. This will result in an increase in high and mid clouds for this afternoon into the early evening hours. In addition, a weak surface trough will slide through the area and will flip winds around to the west and northwest across mainly central KS this afternoon. Did go ahead and insert some fog across southeast KS late tonight into Sat morning. This is expected to be the result of a weak surface ridge moving into the area along with clearing skies.

For Sat, Polar low will migrate down across southern Ontario with northwest flow aloft in place from the Pacific Northwest through the Plains, with a series of upper perturbations embedded in the flow. As the Polar low slides east, another shot of Arctic air will spill south Saturday across the Northern Plains into to the Upper Mississippi Vally. At the same time, another upper impulse will track from the Northern Rockies into the Central Plains and will provide a swath of wintry precip to locations well north and northeast of our forecast area. Strong cold front is expected to move through the forecast area Sat night and will not allow highs to get out of the 30s for Sunday. Normal highs for this time of year are in the mid and upper 40s.

Good news is that a progressive northwest flow pattern will remain in place, which means that colder air will be pushed east quickly, with maxes on Monday approaching seasonal normals. There is good model agreement that we will see some good downslope on Tuesday which will push highs into the mid and upper 50s for most of the area. Beyond Tuesday, models start to diverge on how to handle a couple fast moving impulses tracking southeast in the northwest flow aloft. So confidence in temps beyond Tuesday is fairy low. However, confidence remains high that we are not looking at any significant precip events.

AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z SATURDAY/

Issued at 533 AM CST Fri Dec 5 2025

Main aviation concern will be some patchy low clouds this morning.

Some areas of low clouds developed a few hours ago over western and central OK and are working slowly northeast. Some of this may affect KICT and KCNU between 13z-17z but confidence is low on how widespread they will be. For now will just run with TEMPOs at both sites with the thinking KICT would have the best shot at these cigs coming-in near IFR levels. If they move-in they are not expected to last more than a few hour before they burn off. Once these cigs move out, VFR conditions are then expected at all sites for the remainder of the day. There will be a chance at some fog developing generally after 09z at KCNU as winds to light and skies clear out.

ICT WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.