textproduct: Wichita

KEY MESSAGES

- There is potential for a few strong to severe storms and heavy rainfall for late this afternoon and tonight

- High confidence for heat to build across the region again for the weekend into Tuesday

DISCUSSION

Issued at 234 AM CDT Thu Aug 6 2026

Showers/storms currently over western Kansas will continue to move slowly eastward and look to linger this morning over south central Kansas. Not expecting strong or severe storms with this activity. Meanwhile we will be watching for two possible scenarios for storm re-development later today and tonight. First scenario, is for storms to potentially develop along a surface frontal boundary near the Kansas/Oklahoma border during the late afternoon/evening hours(this will be predicated on what this morning's activity does to the effective surface boundary). If storms can develop along this surface boundary, moderate instability combined with decent wind shear profile aloft favors some storms reaching severe levels. Inverted V-type sounding profile will create high DCAPE values over 1000, and good directional shear in the 700-300mb layer supports a few severe storms capable of producing up to golf ball size hail and damaging winds up to 70mph. The second scenario seems more likely, once again seeing a signal for elevated storms to develop tonight as low level jet increases moisture transport into 700mb baroclinic zone. The main risk from these night-time storms would be large hail early on then possible heavy rainfall. The combination of precipitable water values increasing over south central/southeast Kansas overnight, and low level jet focus remaining more upstream favors a prolonged period of showers/storms tonight into early Friday morning.

No real changes for the Saturday through Tuesday period as models continue to show upper level high pressure center being stretched eastward across the southern plains. This will cause the heat dome to build over Kansas with triple digit daytime highs likely to occur over central/south central Kansas. Model ensemble probabilities of 100 degrees or greater for daytime highs Sunday-Tuesday are at 70% or higher for those same locations. Some long range models are showing potential for storms to develop along a sagging frontal boundary near central Kansas for Tuesday and Wednesday.

AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z FRIDAY/

Issued at 558 AM CDT Thu Aug 6 2026

Scattered thunderstorms will continue to move across south central Kansas early this morning with possible thunderstorms affect KICT taf site. Otherwise low clouds in LIFR/IFR category will linger over central Kansas through the morning hours before improving for early this afternoon. More showers and storms are expected to redevelop tonight which could impact KICT and KCNU sites.

ICT WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.