textproduct: Wichita

KEY MESSAGES

- There is some potential for strong to severe storms late tonight across southern Kansas

- A better signal for storms/severe weather looks to impact the area on Saturday

- Cooler temperatures and dry weather to follow for Sunday and Monday

DISCUSSION

Issued at 309 AM CDT Fri Jun 12 2026

Quiet weather conditions will be on tap across Kansas for today with drier air in place. Focus will then shift to late tonight and Saturday as the much richer moisture over Oklahoma begins to spread back northward into Kansas. Current early morning satellite water vapor imagery shows an upper level wave over northern Utah. This system will continue to track east across the Rockies today and eject out into the central plains later today. Storms are expected to develop over the high plains region later this afternoon then track eastward into southwest Kansas by this evening. There is some potential for these storms to travel further east overnight than the latest CAM model projections across northern Oklahoma/southern Kansas. And/Or re-develop over southeast Kansas towards daybreak Saturday. Key things to watch is if jetstream winds remain strong with 12z model runs, thus enhancing right entrance region dynamics over southern Kansas. This will induce the higher PW/instability axis to migrate northward into southern Kansas with increasing low level jet focusing the convective potential. Strong to severe storms would be possible over southern Kansas late tonight with large hail possible given decent directional shear in the mid-levels and higher elevated instability. Damaging winds are also a risk, especially if the overnight convection takes on forward propagating MCS characteristics.

On Saturday, a strong cold front will surge southward across the central plains and encounter a very unstable airmass residing over the eastern half of Kansas in the afternoon. Storms look to erupt along the cold front in the afternoon and would be capable of producing very large hail/damaging winds. The storms look to cluster together quickly and become a forward propagating MCS with primary risk being damaging winds at night. There is a scenario where this Saturday setup could be altered. That would entail if convection was to become more widespread late tonight and linger into Saturday morning, thus making atmosphere recovery a little more uncertain.

Drier/cooler air will overspread the region on Sunday into Monday yielding below normal temperatures and dry weather conditions. A northwest flow regime aloft will persist through the upcoming week with warmer temperatures returning to the region for Tuesday- Thursday. Models show a weak elevated signal Tuesday night for possible thunderstorm development with a better signal slated for Wednesday night.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z SATURDAY/

Issued at 555 AM CDT Fri Jun 12 2026

VFR conditions will prevail across the region for most of the 24hr period. There is some potential for storms to develop and track eastward across southern Kansas during the overnight hours. As a result, we introduced some PROB30.

ICT WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.