textproduct: North Platte

KEY MESSAGES

- The combination of early morning fog followed by wintry precipitation in the form of snow/ice could lead to travel impacts across north central Nebraska Friday.

- Temperatures return to well above-normal values for all Saturday through the middle of next week with dry conditions likely.

- The warmth, lack of recent precipitation, and incoming dry air will likely lead to fire weather concerns each of the next six days with greatest concern on Sunday.

SHORT TERM /THROUGH FRIDAY NIGHT/

Issued at 338 PM CST Thu Jan 1 2026

Satellite imagery shows a broad shield of high level clouds emanating from west of the Continental Divide. Meanwhile, the Missouri River serves as a fairly impressive barrier between lingering low stratus/fog to the east and a narrow corridor of clear skies to the west. Given the local area's position along the major river corridor, fog has largely settled out of the area and poses no impacts to central and western Nebraska for now. A passing warm front has allowed winds to veer to the north and temperatures to quickly climb as a result. Values range from the upper 40s to upper 50s for most outside far north central Nebraska where later arrival of the front has limited the warm up to only the low 40s as of 21z (3pm CST).

For tonight...modest surface high pressure will settle south and east out of the Dakotas and into the upper Mississippi Valley. Increasing lee-troughing will allow low-level winds to flip to the south late, drawing in increased surface moisture and warmer temperatures. Where winds remain light and variable across central Nebraska could produce some patchy fog. This is largely east of Highway 83. SREF/HREF probabilities are both low for seeing < 1SM visibility, limited to 10% or less, therefore will keep mention to patchy as a result. Lows will fall to the lower 20s across our east but should hold onto the middle 30 for the Panhandle.

Friday/Friday Night...confidence is increasing in the potential for at least minor impacts from wintry weather across north central Nebraska. Early Friday morning, winds will continue to veer initially to the south then to the west as a weak shortwave dives southeast out of Wyoming. This will propel a warm front west to east and result in weak isentropic lift around the 290-300K surfaces within a plume of richer moisture. This will lead to top down saturation and with weak omega, do expect light precipitation. Forecast soundings show well saturated mid-level supporting ice introduction into the column. Meanwhile, lingering dry air at the surface will be slower to erode with a slight warm nose around the h8 level. This introduces a thaw/refreeze element to the equation which should preclude an all snow event. HREF probabilities highlight roughly equal chances of FZRA/IP (~25-30% of being dominant P-type) for a few of our far north central Nebraska counties but further evaluation of forecast soundings shows a fairly shallow warm nose with deeper cold air at the surface. This suggests more sleet than freezing rain due to lack of complete melting of hydrometeors. Temperatures across our northeast, largely due to cloud cover, ongoing precipitation, and cooler easterly flow will struggle to exceed the freezing mark through the day. This should allow for at least some winter travel hazards to continue through the bulk of the day. PoPs were closely tied to HREF probabilities with blends towards RAP/GFS 1Hr/HRRR outputs. This results in a window from around daybreak Friday through late afternoon where active precipitation is favored. QPF remains light and closely resembles HREF Probability-Matched Mean values which limits amounts to a few hundredths. This results in perhaps a dusting of snow/sleet and potentially a glaze of ice, more than enough to cause some slickness concerns. Folks should be aware of these threats, focused northeast of a Valentine to Broken Bow line, throughout the day Friday. Elsewhere, much warmer and dry conditions are expected with highs reaching the 40s and 50s. Lows will fall into the 20s to low 30s east to west Friday night into Saturday.

LONG TERM /SATURDAY THROUGH THURSDAY/

Issued at 338 PM CST Thu Jan 1 2026

The extended forecast remains warm with dry conditions expected.

Saturday through Monday...Amplified upper-level ridging will resume across the Intermountain West behind the departing shortwave diving southeast. Anomalous mid-level heights quickly return across the High Plains and this will lead to another stretch of significant warmth across the region. ECWMF Extreme Forecast Index (EFI) highlights much of the upcoming week with strong positive anomalies with values of 0.6-0.7 on any given day but most impressive on Sunday and Monday with values of 0.8+ and non-zero Shift of Tails (SoT). NBM spread for temperatures remain small suggesting fairly high confidence in occurrence with even 25th Percentile values reaching the 60s for Sunday and Monday. NBM 75th Percentile values threaten January all-time record highs at both LBF and VTN (74F and 72F respectively) so record watch will be necessary again. Regardless, afternoon highs 25-35F above normal will promote fire weather concerns for the timeframe.

Tuesday and beyond...heights aloft begin to falter some as multiple northern stream disturbances pass across the northern periphery of the high pressure aloft. This suggests a slight cooling across the area but still likely remaining above normal for the time of year. Values will likely hold in the 40s and 50s or roughly 15-25F above normal. Around the middle of the week, a more pronounced shortwave trough will move ashore southern California and eventually track through the southern and central Rockies onto the central Plains sometime around Thursday/Friday. This could spell the end of the recent dry spell and may introduce more expansive PoPs to the region. Ensembles remain fairly split with evolution of the system and so confidence at this range remains limited. The inherited Slight Chance PoPs (< 25%) seem adequate for now with further refinements likely in the coming days.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z SATURDAY/

Issued at 1142 PM CST Thu Jan 1 2026

Light wintry precipitation in the form of freezing rain and snow will impact portions of north central Nebraska, mainly northeast of a line from Valentine to Broken Bow, Friday morning. While accumulations are expected to be light, some brief reductions in visibility will be possible. Precipitation will start off as freezing rain around 12Z before transitioning over to snow or a rain/snow mix by the afternoon and tapering off by late afternoon. The wintry mix will remain northeast of KLBF, but some lowering of ceilings down to at least 6000 feet could be observed through early Friday evening. After precipitation pushes out of the region, ceilings will remain near 2000 feet across north central Nebraska through early evening before rising back into VFR conditions.

LBF WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.