textproduct: Wichita

KEY MESSAGES

- A brief warm-up on Wednesday before another surge of arctic air arrives late in the week lingering into the weekend.

- Periodic flurries or light snow may impact parts of central KS from Thursday night and lingering into the weekend, but we are not anticipating big impacts at this time.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 230 PM CST Tue Jan 27 2026

A weak frontal boundary was moving across southern Kansas this afternoon with light northerly winds in it's wake. As sfc high pressure in the wake of the front propagates south and east into the Southern Plains late tonight, light southwest winds are expected to overspread the area. Some mid and high clouds may hamper radiational cooling early, but with clearing late in the night, some good radiational cooling will occur, especially in areas with deeper snowpack.

Rising heights/increasing thickness are progged on Wednesday with southwesterly downslope flow through much of the day. This is expected to bring rising temperatures and melting snow with highs approaching average for some locations. Locations with the deepest snowpack may still struggle to climb out of the mid and upper 30s.

Thursday-Sunday...A deep mid/upper trough is progged to meander over the Great Lakes area on Thursday while another shortwave trough rotates into the Upper Mississippi Valley area forcing a cold front southward over the Central Plains. H85 cold air advection is progged to increase and persist from Thursday into early Saturday before low level southerly flow returns allowing temperatures to moderate. We could see a brief period of light snow or snow flurries as a couple of subtle pv anomalies rotate over the area in northwest mid/upper flow late in the week and into the weekend. As the previous shift noted, this isn't looking like a big event at this time.

Sunday-Tuesday...A shortwave trough digging over the Northern Plains and into the Middle Mississippi Valley area late this weekend may bring another round of light snow to the area although higher probabilities are expected to remain north and east of the forecast area at this time. Rising heights/increasing thickness early in the week is expected to result in rising temperatures once again. A progressive pattern will bring another shortwave trough into the area towards the middle of the week. Impacts to sensible weather may remain north and east of our forecast area with seasonable and dry weather conditions anticipated at this time.

AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z WEDNESDAY/

Issued at 1057 AM CST Tue Jan 27 2026

VFR conditions are expected to prevail over the next 24 hours.

A surface trough sagging across the area will support light winds across the area through Wednesday morning. SCT to BKN mid level clouds continue to overspread the region, and these should shift eastward by tonight or Wednesday morning.

ICT WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.