textproduct: North Platte

KEY MESSAGES

- Hot temperatures remain across the region this week, with the warmest highs arriving Thursday through Saturday. Potential for temperatures to break 100 remains highest over north central Nebraska late week.

- In addition to the prolonged hot and dry conditions, gusty winds may bring some elevated to near critical fire weather concerns.

- Uncertainty remains in the forecast Sunday into early next week, as guidance struggles with the upper air pattern.

SHORT TERM /THROUGH WEDNESDAY NIGHT/

Issued at 223 AM CDT Tue Jul 14 2026

Today and tonight, the upper ridge axis will extend from Wyoming through South Dakota and northern Illinois. Despite such as strong upper ridge to our north, highs will range near 90, with low to mid 90s north central. These highs range from 0 to 3 degrees above normal central and south, and 4 to 8 degrees above normal north. H85 temperature streamlines are from the southeast and anomalies remain slightly below normal across Kansas and Missouri today, so when advecting northwestward into Nebraska, this is attributing to highs not being as hot as across South Dakota. South southeasterly winds become breezy by this afternoon at 15 to 25 mph. Skies will be mostly sunny with a few cumulus clouds in the afternoon. Lows tonight in the low to mid 60s.

Wednesday and Wednesday night, the synoptic pattern remains similar with highs nearly the same, mostly near 90, except with low 90s north central. South southeasterly winds again become breezy by afternoon at 15 to 25 mph. Skies will be mostly sunny, with a few cumulus clouds in the afternoon. Lows Wednesday night in the mid 60s.

LONG TERM /THURSDAY THROUGH MONDAY/

Issued at 223 AM CDT Tue Jul 14 2026

Late week, the heat continues in earnest, bringing the warmest temperatures in this hear wave. Upper level ridging will remain over the region, with the warmest temperatures aloft this week. This is expected to result in highs reaching the upper 90s to lower 100s across the region, with the best potential for breaking 100 remaining across northern Nebraska. In fact, the latest run of the GEFS ensemble highlights this well, bringing a 50 to 60 percent chance for temperatures to break 100, mainly along the Highway 20 corridor. These highs still remain around the 90th percentile of local climatology and are expected to remain below record highs. Still keeping a close eye on trends, especially in overnight low temperatures, to determine whether heat headlines will be needed or not. Overnight lows are expected to cool into the upper 60s to lower 70s across north central Nebraska, mainly areas east of Highway 83. Worth noting, is that even these lows remain near the 90th percentile in local climatology, so they could provide little relief. Even though daytime highs are expected to just crack Advisory criteria, the general lack of overnight cooling may be the deciding factor for potential headlines.

In addition to the heat, conditions still look to remain breezy late week into the weekend. However, latest guidance begins to suggest that gusty winds will slowly decrease Thursday onward, with gusts around 30 to 35 mph on Thursday reducing to 20 to 25 mph by Friday and Saturday. While this may help limit greater fire weather concerns late week, there still is potential for elevated to near critical fire weather conditions through the end of the week, given the hot, dry conditions and generally gusty winds.

Uncertainty remains in the forecast Sunday into early next week. There remains a notable difference in the GFS, Canadian, and ECMWF solutions regarding a trough tracking across the Pacific Northwest into north central North America. Interestingly, the GFS and Canadian both suggest the trough helps amplify the ridge by Saturday, but then they diverge. The GFS keeps strong ridging across the region, while the Canadian flattens the ridge a bit, tracking the stronger flow over the Dakotas. Meanwhile, the ECMWF brings the trough across the northern United States, flattening the ridge and bringing northwest flow into the region. However, the latest European guidance also suggest the ridge builds back in over the next few days. This discrepancy continues to reflect in cluster analysis as well, with the more European weighted clusters flattening the ridge, while the clusters more influenced by the GFS and Canadian keep upper level ridging across the region, with little to no interruption. With this bit of disagreement, the NBM brings in some slight chance PoPs Sunday into early week. Taking a dive into the ensemble data, precipitation chances still look pretty sparse, and even the runs bringing precipitation bring very low end amounts. With that in mind, confidence in any precipitation remains very low at this time. However, there is a bit better consensus that upper level temperatures may cool a bit, bringing highs potentially back to around seasonal by early next week. Worth remembering, seasonal highs are still right around 90 to 91 degrees, so even if this becomes reality, it won't be a significant cool off. With this much uncertainty in the longer term forecast, will continue to keep an eye on forecast trends, especially seeing if the global models can come into better consensus on this upper level flow over the next few days. Until then, there is still plenty of potential for changes in the forecast for early next week.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z WEDNESDAY/

Issued at 1230 PM CDT Tue Jul 14 2026

VFR conditions are expected through the forecast period.

The only potential for clouds will be diurnal cumulus which should only affect KLBF with bases around 5kft AGL. Southerly winds will be persistent with gusts around 20 knots Tuesday afternoon and again by late morning Wednesday.

LBF WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.