textproduct: Wichita

KEY MESSAGES

- Mild temperatures persisting through the next 7 days.

- Rainfall becoming more likely late Friday night through early Sunday morning.

- Warm, dry, and windy conditions are possible early next week and may lead to fire weather concerns.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 233 PM CST Wed Feb 11 2026

Early this afternoon, broad mid/upper ridging is overspreading the southern CONUS with a couple of deep layer troughs over New England and the Pacific coastline. Closer to home, a surface ridge is slowly progressing eastward across the forecast area today resulting in surface winds remaining light this afternoon and evening. Broad upper ridging will continue to support seasonably mild temperatures on Thursday and Friday. Meanwhile, a deep shortwave trough will begin it's trek eastward out of the eastern Pacific and into the southwestern CONUS. An embedded ripple in zonal flow across the central plains late on Thursday into early Friday will support a low chance (under 20%) of a few isolated showers across portions of western and southern Kansas. However, rainfall amounts will be relatively negligible compared to the much more powerful system forecast to arrive this weekend.

As the aforementioned mid/upper trough progresses eastward Friday night into Saturday, the central plains will sit underneath a region of broad upper level diffluence. That being said, there continues to be some disagreement with the mid range guidance with how the system will progress across the central and southern plains leading to timing and coverage area of rainfall Friday night through Saturday morning. The ECMWF/EPS solutions continue to be a tick on the drier side compared to the rest of the global model suite. However, it appears at though the dry runs of the Euro from yesterday were a bit of an outlier, and both the deterministic euro and its family of ensembles are coming more in line with the rest of the global model suite. The main difference is that the Euro insists this trough will be a progressive open wave, so the time that broad synoptic ascent will be focused across the forecast area is shorter than the rest of the models resulting to less rainfall totals. Meanwhile, the GFS/GEFS continues to be on board with a soggy Friday night through Sunday morning with locations along and southeast of the Kansas Turnpike possibly seeing over an inch of rainfall. This is due to this guidance signaling a stronger, deeper, closed system that moves slower keeping the necessary synoptic ascent across the area for longer. Even still, the heaviest rainfall with this solution is still focused across southeast Kansas.

After Sunday, long range models continue to show a strong signal for potent mid/upper ridging overspreading the central plains. This will support above average temperatures across the central portions of the CONUS. Additionally, long range models show another strong system likely to enter into the central plains early next week. This system appears likely to bring warm, dry, and windy conditions on Monday, and especially Tuesday. Even with the possibility of ample rainfall this weekend, fire weather concerns appear increasingly likely next week.

AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z FRIDAY/

Issued at 1044 PM CST Wed Feb 11 2026

VFR conditions are expected throughout the forecast period. Light southeasterly to southerly winds are expected through 16-18Z. Winds will turn westerly then northerly during the afternoon/evening period as a weak surface low passes across the area. Winds will remain northerly through the end of the forecast period.

FIRE WEATHER

Issued at 233 PM CST Wed Feb 11 2026

NEXT WEEK...A return to well above average temperatures in the 60s-70s and periodic stout/gusty south-southwest winds looks probable throughout next week. This warm and windy combination should support periodic elevated grassland fire danger. There is some potential for critical/red flag fire danger at times if dewpoints/humidity can remain low enough. Stay tuned as we refine forecast details in the coming days.

ICT WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.