textproduct: North Platte

KEY MESSAGES

- A Marginal Risk (level 1 of 5) for severe weather is in place for portions of southwest and central Nebraska late Thursday into Friday with isolated hail up to one inch the main concern.

- Rain becoming snow is expected across our western zones late Thursday into Friday with brief periods of moderate to heavy snow along with strong winds potentially leading to travel difficulties on Friday.

- Temperatures return to above normal values along with dry conditions Saturday through Monday before another cooldown arrives towards the middle of next week.

SHORT TERM /THROUGH FRIDAY NIGHT/

Issued at 248 AM CST Thu Mar 5 2026

Currently, skies remain largely clear across western Nebraska. The area remains caught between departing weak shortwave trough crossing the lower Missouri Valley near the Iowa/Missouri border and more impressive longwave troughing to the west. Satellite imagery shows enhanced mid and upper level flow ahead of this feature with a persistent stream of high level cirrus tracking south to north across central Wyoming. This aligns with increasing divergence aloft beneath the right entrance region of a modest h25 jet max. Fog across central Nebraska will hamper travel for the early morning Thursday and Dense Fog Advisories remain in effect until 11am CST for Wheeler/Garfield/Holt Counties. Otherwise, lows will remain fairly mild at or above the freezing mark for most other than typical sheltered areas.

For Thursday/Friday...strengthening mid and upper-level lift will promote lee troughing and southerly winds across much of the Central Plains today. Fog will be slow to dissipate as low-level moisture advection helps offset any boundary layer mixing through the late morning. Ongoing Dense Fog Advisory goes until 11am CST and this aligns with HREF/SREF probabilities of < 1SM visibility largely disappearing. Strengthening south winds should gust around 25 to 35 mph for areas east of Highway 83. Even though daytime highs should reach the 60s to low 70s, or 15-20F above normal, dew points climbing into the 40s will preclude any greater fire weather concerns. While lower humidity is likely west of Highway 61, winds are much weaker and thus concern is muted. Increasing warm air advection (WAA) late today will lead to steadily increasing PoPs through the evening hours. SREF/HREF guidance shows measurable QPF potential arriving late this evening into early Friday but vary on placement. SREF is further west while the HREF is further east and more muted. The trend for the forecast has been to decrease PoPs slightly with a slower arrival. It isn't until Midnight where Likely categories (55-75%) appear across mainly central Nebraska. This coincides with the greatest signal for thunder with NAM12 showing expansive negative lifted indices and HREF mean output paints 500- 1000 j/kg MUCAPE. The Storm Prediction Center maintains a Marginal Risk (level 1 of 5) for severe weather during this time and see no reason to stray from this thought. Forecast soundings show strong speed shear in a moderately unstable layer above the frontal inversion. This supports elevated storms capable of isolated hail up to 1.00" in diameter. As WAA continues above the inversion, a stout warm nose will develop and should quell development as we get closer to daybreak Friday. This suggests a short window for severe potential and interestingly enough, HREF > 40 dBZ paintballs are nonexistent until closer to 08-10z (2-4am CST)and it's only the midday HRRR run showing that. So confidence remains fairly limited in actually seeing anything remotely close to strong to severe convection in the local area. Further northwest, developing low pressure over western Kansas will draw a cold front south out of the Northern Plains. Stronger cold air advection (CAA) behind this feature will quickly cool profiles and support a transition from rain to snow in our western zones. While CAA will be moderately strong, convergence along the baroclinic zone will be modest and so previous thoughts of a strong fgen band setting up across the Panhandle into the Sandhills appear to be on the decrease somewhat. Even so, modest fgen and orographic lift off the Pine Ridge will support steady snow with moderate to briefly heavy snow intensities early Friday morning. Should the stronger intensities occur early in the morning, greater snowfall impacts would be likely. As it stands now, the forecast highlights mainly a daytime timing for peak lift and this should hamper snow accumulations somewhat. Overall thinking remains fairly unchanged...generally 1-3" northwest of a Chappell to Ainsworth line with locally heavier amounts closer to 4" near the Pine Ridge and this lines up well with HREF Probability-Matched Mean output. With low ratio heavy/wet snow expected and strong northerly winds gusting around 30-35 mph, blowing snow will be a concern and travel impacts appear likely for the Sandhills into the Panhandle. High temperatures Friday were lowered on account of CAA and active precipitation likely holding back any diurnal bump across the area. The result is a widespread 3-6F drop with values ranging from middle 30s over the Sandhills to near 50F towards south central Nebraska. Precipitation will linger through the day Friday but the passing trough axis should quickly end ongoing activity from west to east. Via the model blend, PoPs linger through the early morning in our eastern zones but dry conditions appear likely by daybreak Saturday.

LONG TERM /SATURDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY/

Issued at 248 AM CST Thu Mar 5 2026

As precipitation pushes out the region Friday night, surface high pressure builds across the central Plains by early Saturday 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 7 to 14 C range will push into Nebraska through Monday. This will allow highs to steadily rise through the weekend into the upper 60s to mid 70s by Monday afternoon. Latest probability guidance even suggests the probability of seeing over 80 degrees to be over 80 percent across portions of southwest and into central Nebraska. In addition, looking at the latest EFI remains high (0.7 to 0.8) with marginal SoT (between 0 and 1) increasing confidence that more extreme, potentially record-breaking, maximum temperatures may occur on Monday. Therefore, would not be surprised to see temperatures increase in the next day or two. Speaking of records, record highs currently sit at 81, 78, 79, and 80 at North Platte, Valentine, Broken Bow, and Imperial respectively. If temperatures do increase into the 80s on Monday, most if not all of these sites will have the opportunity to break new records.

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. The latest model runs of the GFS and ECMWF have tracks that are a little further to the east keeping most of the precipitation out of our area. While precipitation continues to be highlighted, if the track trends continue to shift, would expect precipitation chances to diminish in upcoming forecasts. Stay tuned to the most recent forecasts regarding this mid-week system.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z FRIDAY/

Issued at 1152 AM CST Thu Mar 5 2026

Conditions will remain VFR through this afternoon. Winds will remain south - southwesterly across much of the region with gusts up to 25 to 30 kts. While winds will diminish after sunset, patchy fog may settle in over south central Nebraska, bringing reduced visibilities, and potential MVFR/IFR conditions. Some isolated thunderstorms will be possible early Friday morning and capable of producing heavy rainfall, small hail, and strong, erratic winds. A cold front will start to move in and push the fog out by mid Friday morning, bringing strong northwest winds gusting upwards of 30 to 35 kts and some showers may be possible in the vicinity of KVTN near the end of the forecast period. Mixed precip will also be possible ahead of the front just beyond the taf period. We will continue to refine the forecast for future updates.

LBF WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.