textproduct: North Platte

KEY MESSAGES

- After a dry daytime Tuesday, precipitation chances increase tonight into early Wednesday ahead of a strong cold front bringing sharply colder temperatures.

- Temperatures should fall through the day for most locations Wednesday, with highs only in the lower 20s to lower 30s, roughly 10- 20F below normal, followed by sub-zero wind chills east of Highway 83 Thursday morning.

- Largely dry conditions will prevail from Thursday through early next week with seasonable temperatures trending much warmer by Monday.

SHORT TERM /THROUGH TONIGHT/

Issued at 334 AM CST Tue Dec 2 2025

Early morning satellite analysis depicts largely northwesterly flow across the western 2/3rds of the country. The dividing line for this appears to be the Mississippi Valley where elongated troughing slowly tracks east. In vicinity of this trough axis, expansive low stratus was prevalent on GOES Nighttime Microphysics imagery. Meanwhile, closer and immediately upstream of the local area, high clouds continue to shift south and east within the upper-level flow. Temperatures as of 09z (3am CST) were in the teens with some single digit values immediately east of the forecast area.

For today...expecting quiet conditions for the daytime hours. Height rises and resulting subsidence from the departing trough to the east should keep things dry until greater forcing arrives later tonight. Area observations and satellite analysis suggests lingering snowpack across the area, though values were limited to around an inch or less for most locations. Temperatures were tricky today given residual snow and partly to mostly cloudy skies. That said, given westerly downsloping winds and a slight boost to forecast h85 temperatures, did increase temperatures for the light snowpack areas (< 1") but held closer to the cooler guidance elsewhere. To get this, utilized a blend of NBM/MET/MAV guidance the lowered in select areas using RAPTL. The result is middle to upper 40s in the southwest to upper 30s in our north. NWP guidance suggests all snow should be melted away today and given the clouds, believe this is fairly aggressive. Even so, most locations should effectively lose their lingering snow with the warmer temperatures.

For tonight...strong Canadian high pressure will settle south and east, forcing a strong cold front through the Northern Plains. Forcing is somewhat nebulous, however, increasing convergence/fgen with slight enhancements from orographic lift invof the Black Hills/Pine Ridge should allow some light precipitation to form. This will initially arrive along the NE/SD border early this evening with a slow progression south through the Sandhills. There remains some uncertainty regarding precipitation type: while forecast soundings depict a near to fully sub-freezing profile, ice nuclei appear to lag increasing low-level saturation a bit. Thus a few locations could potentially see light drizzle/freezing drizzle (FZDZ) prior to a transition to all snow. HREF output generally aligns with this thinking where probabilities of FZDZ being the dominant precipitation type reach nearly 30% this evening through early Wednesday morning. Even in the worst case scenario, QPF is on the order of a few hundredths if measurable moisture were to occur. This suggests limited if any impacts. Will need to monitor this potential going forward and as it stands now, believe at least isolated slick spots are possible favoring east of Highway 83 and north of Highway 20 during the overnight hours. Tuesday night lows will fall to the low 20s but are not expected to be the low temperatures for the calendar day thanks to the clearing cold front.

LONG TERM /WEDNESDAY THROUGH MONDAY/

Issued at 334 AM CST Tue Dec 2 2025

Wednesday...a fairly atypical but not unheard of day is set to unfold. Strong cold front with reinforcing Canadian high pressure will clear in the early morning. The result will be strong CAA through the day under cloud skies. Because of this, temperatures will likely follow a non-diurnal trend with the high temperatures for the day occurring in the morning and steadily falling through the afternoon and evening. This means lower 20s to lower 30s around midday falling to the teens and 20s respectively by mid-afternoon. Winds will be breezy out of the north sustained around 10 to 20 mph with gusts early around 25 mph. This will support wind chills holding in the single digits all day for portions of north central Nebraska. Other locations should manage to reach the teens but even so it'll certainly be a raw day and folks needing to spend extended periods outdoors should be aware of the cold.

Thursday through the weekend...strong longwave troughing will be situated over the Hudson Bay with amplified ridging developing off the West Coast. Extended northeast to southwest troughing will stretch from the upper Midwest through the Four Corners region. This trough will weaken with height rises building in from the southwest by late Thursday. Amplified flow upstream will gradually become more zonal with a weak shortwave embedded within the flow tracking out of the northern Rockies over the weekend. With the resulting airmass largely of Pacific origin, expecting more seasonable temperatures as a result. This means upper 30s to middle 40s each day Thursday and Friday before a backdoor cold front brings back another chill to our northeast zones for the weekend. It's around this time we could potentially see another light precipitation event across our west and northeast. Temperatures largely favor at least a mention of snow overnight but ensemble QPF probabilities paint only 50-70% potential of exceeding 0.01" for any 24 hour period in the local area. All this to say, any precipitation will likely remain very light and have limited if any impacts. More prominent height rises return by the end of the weekend, quickly ending any window for precipitation across the region.

Monday and beyond...model guidance continues to be in fairly good agreement in painting moderately strong ridging over southern California to begin the week with much of the Central and Southern Plains on the eastern periphery of this feature. For Monday and Tuesday, the result will be dry but breezy conditions. Temperatures will be fairly warm for middle December: 40s and 50s or nearly 10- 15F above normal. Ridging will retrograde towards the middle of the week as multiple disturbance push out of the Pacific Northwest. This should allow for a return of precipitation chances though for now timing remains fairly uncertain beyond Tuesday. Even so, both EPS/GEFS guidance advertise above normal temperatures continuing through the middle of next week with slight increases in QPF probabilities. Given this, some wintry weather will again be possible favoring overnight hours though signals suggest only light QPF at this time.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z WEDNESDAY/

Issued at 1147 AM CST Tue Dec 2 2025

A cold front will move through the area tonight. Lower ceilings will spread southward with the front. A bit of light snow and freezing drizzle will be possible across portions of north central Nebraska along and just behind the front. Winds will become north as the front moves through. MVFR and local IFR ceilings will linger after sunrise Wednesday morning.

LBF WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.