textproduct: North Platte

KEY MESSAGES

- Areas of dense fog likely early Wednesday morning, mainly for portions of south central Nebraska.

- Active weather arrives later Thursday into Friday, with the threat for briefly severe thunderstorms followed by rain transitioning to snow across our northwest.

- Accumulating wet snow and strong winds will lead to travel difficulties across the Panhandle into the central Sandhills on Friday.

- Moderate to high confidence in a dry weekend with temperatures returning to well above normal through early next week.

SHORT TERM /THROUGH FRIDAY/

Issued at 223 AM CST Wed Mar 4 2026

Currently, broad stratus shield remains in place across eastern Nebraska. Slight westward shifting is noted on recent satellite guidance. Similarly, surface observations have shown a slight increase in fog reports across far eastern Nebraska and western Iowa. Temperatures have fallen into the 30s to low 40s and should fall into the upper 20s to lower 30s for most by daybreak.

Today/Tonight...expect largely quiet weather across the area beyond morning fog. HREF/SREF linger probabilities, specifically visibilities below 1SM, through late morning with decreasing signals between 15-18z (9am-Noon CST). Weak troughing will continue to cross the Central Plains with trough axis clearing western Nebraska by midday. Brief but strong shortwave ridging will follow this feature with height rises peaking during the latter half of the day. This will support dry conditions and clearing skies from west to east. Increasing lee-troughing will strengthen southerly winds along the High Plains. Moisture advection will remain weak but modest warm air advection (WAA) should support similarly warm temperatures with highs reaching the upper 50s and 60s. Will nudge up a degree or two across the area as directional winds support more downslope warming. Winds remain weak, however, and offset the above normal temperatures and dry air to limit any fire weather concerns. An increasing LLJ later in the evening may allow steady winds through the overnight. This will effective keep things on the mild side with many locations across the northern Sandhills likely remaining above the freezing mark. Areas to the south in addition to the sheltered east/west valleys should still fall into the upper 20s to near 30F.

Thursday/Friday...deeper troughing sets up across the western CONUS during the day Wednesday, with the system digging south across the Great Basin by early Thursday. Height falls will begin to increase late in the day as an inverted surface trough extends northeast from a developing surface low over eastern Colorado. Southerly flow ahead of this will increase markedly and usher in richer moisture with unimpeded flow from the western Gulf. This will allow precipitable water (PWAT) values to climb rapidly, with GEFS/EPS guidance suggesting anomalies of nearly 200% of normal east of Highway 83. NBM90 suggests light QPF late in the afternoon with NAM guidance suggesting similar within the strong WAA/moisture advection. Will add a Slight Chance (< 25%) PoP to match this thinking. High temperatures should climb into the 60s to low 70s. PoPs quickly increase as WAA is gradually replaced by stronger upper-level dynamics via stronger upper level divergence beneath the right entrance region of 90-100 knot h25 jet. With southwesterly mid-level flow, lapse rates aloft will steepen and promote modest instability within a strongly sheared environment. The SPC has maintained a Day 2 Marginal Risk (Level 1 of 5) for elevated hail storms. Inspection of forecast soundings shows a deep frontal inversion with upwards of 750 j/kg MUCAPE rooted around h75. Hodographs show good speed shear above the inversion, with 2-6km BWD of 30-40 knots. As convergence increases with the approach cool front from the north, believe scattered storm development is likely by late Thursday evening but capping should become problematic in the early morning Friday with continued WAA in the mid-levels. As surface low pressure forms over eastern Colorado, a strong cold front will dive south across western Nebraska. The increasing fgen along with orographic influence of strong northerly winds will lead to Likely (60-70%) PoPs across our western zones. As temperatures fall, precipitation type will transition from rain to snow. Forecast soundings show a fairly clean transition with copious ice nuclei and steadily falling surface temperatures. What is most concerning with this snow potential is snow rates. SREF probabilities of exceeding 0.01"/3 hours is nearing 70% in our far northwest but similarly, probabilities of exceeding 0.25"/3 hours top out around 10-20%. With strong fgen, deterministic solutions show heavy QPF with amounts exceeding 0.50" during the overnight hours. With the idea this falls as snow, heavy/wet snow accumulations may reach 2-4". Combined with expected gusty winds up to 30 mph, do anticipate travel difficulties in the area. Will have to closely monitor the potential in the coming days for any potential headline needs. As cold air continues to filter in through the early part of the day Friday, the rain to snow transition should shift further southeast and encompass most of the Sandhills. Accumulations will taper off quickly from northwest to southeast, with little to no snow expected southeast of a Chappell to Ainsworth. Much cooler temperatures are expected for Friday with highs only reaching the 30s in our northwest to middle 50s towards south central Nebraska. As the main h5 trough lifts north and east, renewed precipitation is possible as the trough axis crosses western Nebraska. Confidence in this is limited given varying output from deterministic outputs, however, believe PoPs should wane in the latter half of the day Friday with dry conditions likely during the overnight Friday into Saturday.

LONG TERM /FRIDAY NIGHT THROUGH TUESDAY/

Issued at 223 AM CST Wed Mar 4 2026

As precipitation pushes out the region Friday night, zonal flow will return to the region. With this pattern, surface high pressure builds across the central Plains bringing a return to drier conditions and milder temperatures into early next week. A surge of warm air advection with 850 mb temperatures in the 9 to 14 C range will push into Nebraska through Monday. This will allow highs to steadily rise through the weekend into the 70s by Monday afternoon. Latest probability guidance even suggests the probability of seeing over 80 degrees to be over 90 percent. In addition, looking at the latest EFI remains high (0.6 to 0.7) increasing confidence that more extreme maximum temperatures may occur on Monday. Therefore, would expect the currently forecasted highs to rise several degrees, at least into the 80s.

With the return to drier and warmer than normal temperatures through Monday, there may be an increase to fire weather concerns across the region. At this time the greatest concern will be on Monday when humidity values drop into the mid 20s for much of the Sandhills and Panhandle and into the upper teens across southwest Nebraska. Westerly winds will gust up to 25 to 30 mph in the afternoon across much of the area as well on Monday. With fuels dry and ready to burn, will introduce elevated fire concerns for early next week.

A return to precipitation and moisture arrives on Tuesday as the next system develops off the Front Ranges. With precipitation arriving Tuesday morning across the Panhandle and temperatures hovering near freezing, precip type will likely start as snow. As precipitation spreads south and east throughout the day, rain will be the primary p-type before changing back over to all snow Tuesday night as temperatures drop back below freezing. Accumulations as well as track with this system is uncertain, and therefore details will need to be fine-tuned over the next several days. Stay tuned to the most recent forecasts regarding the mid-week system.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z THURSDAY/

Issued at 1151 AM CST Wed Mar 4 2026

VFR conditions are expected to prevail through the TAF period. The fog has dissipated at KLBF, resulting in clear skies. Winds will remain light out of the south to southeast, generally around 5 to 10 kts through this afternoon into the overnight hours. Winds will then strengthen throughout tomorrow morning, becoming southerly to southeasterly at around 10 to 15 kts by the end of the TAF period. There is some possibility of fog development across south central Nebraska, but this is expected to remain east of both terminals.

LBF WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.