textproduct: Midland/Odessa

KEY MESSAGES

Updated at 521 AM CST Thu Jan 22 2026 - An Arctic front makes its way across the area Friday, ushering in dangerously cold temperatures/wind chills through the weekend and into early Monday morning. Some uncertainty remains with the exact timing of the frontal passage and the arrival of sub- freezing temperatures.

- Precipitation chances increase Friday afternoon through Sunday morning. Precipitation initially starts as rain before transitioning to freezing rain late Friday afternoon/early evening. An additional changeover to sleet/snow is possible Saturday afternoon/overnight.

SHORT TERM

(Today through Friday afternoon) Issued at 150 AM CST Thu Jan 22 2026

Broad troughing is evident on water vapor imagery over the eastern half of the CONUS this morning. Meanwhile, another trough is depicted off the coast of California. This western trough is going to have big impacts across much of the southern CONUS this weekend, including our area. In the meantime, temperatures today bounce back into the mid-to-upper 60s and low 70s across west Texas and southeast New Mexico as light return flow persists. Friday morning is when the bottom begins to drop out, so to speak.

There is still some spread in the guidance as to when the arctic front will make it into our area. Some models suggest the front will arrive sometime Friday afternoon, while others suggest the front will arrive in the morning. In general, models tend to struggle with the arrival time of arctic airmasses, and are typically too slow. As a result, we anticipate a most likely scenario where the front will start making its way through our area by the middle to latter portion of Friday morning, trudging southward throughout the rest of the day. This is more or less a "middle of the road" solution, hedging towards an earlier arrival time. Details will continue to be refined in subsequent forecast packages as confidence increases.

In any case, cold air advection continues throughout the day Friday, dropping temperatures across the Permian Basin into the 20s and 30s by late Friday afternoon/early evening. Meanwhile, the aforementioned upper-level trough will start making its way through Baja California and towards the region. Large-scale lift increases as this occurs thanks to difluent flow aloft and the presence of an upper-level jet maxima. Precipitation chances begin to increase late Friday morning and through the afternoon. At this moment, it appears most of what falls Friday morning and early afternoon will be liquid. However, any changes in frontal timing/how quickly temperatures drop will have big impacts on when a changeover to freezing rain will occur. By late Friday afternoon/early evening, PoPs start to really tick up over much of the area, but particularly over the Permian Basin and Trans-Pecos (50-70% precipitation chances there). By this time, freezing to near freezing temperatures are expected across these same areas. As a result, it currently seems most likely that the changeover to freezing rain would occur during this period, beginning in the far northern Permian Basin and gradually shifting southward. Once again, it should be mentioned that if freezing temperatures are realized earlier in the day than we currently have forecast (which is entirely possible given the model biases with arctic airmasses discussed previously), a quicker changeover would occur, and ice accumulations would be higher. No changes were made to the existing Winter Storm Watch that begins at noon CST/11am MST Friday. The event continues into the Long Term period. See the discussion below for details about the rest of the weekend.

Sprang

LONG TERM

(Friday night through Wednesday) Issued at 150 AM CST Thu Jan 22 2026

By Friday night, the upper-level low nears the Baja Peninsula, continuing to transport Pacific moisture into our area aloft. At the same time, the Arctic front looks to make its way down to the Big Bend, leaving bitter cold temperatures behind it. Confidence is high enough that we have issued an Extreme Cold Watch for most of our forecast area Friday night through Saturday morning as overnight lows of 10-20 degrees are expected, with wind chills between -5 and 5 degrees. It should be noted that this watch has been extended through 18Z (noon CST) Sunday since dangerously cold temperatures are forecast to continue through that period. Another short-fused watch may even need to be issued for Sunday night through Monday morning.

Wintry precipitation continues to be a concern Friday night through Sunday morning as well, with PoPs maxing out between 70-90% across most of the area. By Friday evening/night, precipitation type should transition over to mainly freezing rain, particularly across southeast New Mexico and the Permian Basin. However, there remains some uncertainty in the exact timing of this transition. Timing will be determined in part by the vertical temperature profile. If there remains a shallow warm layer aloft, the transition will take longer and will remain a sleet/snow mix. If the warm layer aloft is deep, then freezing rain would be the expected precipitation type as there would be sufficient time for melting to occur before the precipitation falls to the ground and refreezes. Something that makes this forecast challenging is that many deterministic models are showing surface temperatures well above freezing Friday night (which isn't going to be the case), thus rendering forecast soundings not useful at the moment. We will continue to iron out those details in the next two forecast packages.

By Saturday morning, forecast soundings depict a profile more representative of freezing rain. However, the reliability of these remain in question at this time given its inability to accurately represent what should take place Friday night. Heading into late Saturday afternoon/evening, ice looks to change over to snow with maybe a mix of sleet north of I-10 given how cold surface temperatures are forecast to be. The LREF shows a ten degree spread between the 25th and 75th percentiles for Saturday's high temperatures. Nevertheless, temperatures are forecast to be below freezing, with current expected highs in the low to mid 20s Saturday afternoon across the Permian Basin. Surface temperatures are forecast to be cold enough Saturday night into Sunday morning for precipitation type to be all snow before the upper-level trough departs and precipitation ends.

Temperatures remain dangerously cold Sunday into Sunday night behind any snow and ice that has fallen. Afternoon highs are forecast to remain in the 20s for most, with overnight lows in the single digits and teens Sunday night/Monday morning. The dangerously cold temperatures look to end Monday as ensemble guidance and cluster analysis shows the return of quasi-zonal flow aloft. There currently looks to be a warming trend next week. However, how quickly we warm up will depend in part on how much snow and ice actually accumulates. Be sure to keep checking in on the latest forecast as specific details will continue to be ironed out in future forecast packages.

Greening

AVIATION

(12Z TAFS) Issued at 521 AM CST Thu Jan 22 2026

VFR conditions prevail. Light (4-9 kt) southerly winds generally expected through the period.

PRELIMINARY POINT TEMPS/POPS

Big Spring 64 38 43 17 / 0 0 70 90 Carlsbad 65 40 46 23 / 0 10 60 90 Dryden 68 48 65 36 / 0 0 20 70 Fort Stockton 70 49 59 30 / 0 10 40 90 Guadalupe Pass 59 44 46 32 / 0 20 70 90 Hobbs 63 35 37 18 / 0 10 60 90 Marfa 69 40 61 32 / 0 10 40 90 Midland Intl Airport 64 41 43 20 / 0 10 60 90 Odessa 64 42 43 20 / 0 10 60 90 Wink 64 40 47 23 / 0 20 60 90

MAF WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

TX...Winter Storm Watch from Friday afternoon through late Saturday night for Andrews-Borden-Central Brewster-Crane-Davis Mountains-Davis Mountains Foothills-Dawson-Eastern Culberson-Ector-Gaines-Glasscock-Guadalupe Mountains Above 7000 Feet-Guadalupe and Delaware Mountains-Howard-Loving- Martin-Midland-Mitchell-Pecos-Reagan-Reeves County Plains- Scurry-Terrell-Upton-Van Horn and Highway 54 Corridor-Ward- Winkler.

Extreme Cold Watch from late Friday night through Sunday morning for Andrews-Borden-Crane-Davis Mountains-Davis Mountains Foothills-Dawson-Eastern Culberson-Ector-Gaines-Glasscock- Guadalupe and Delaware Mountains-Howard-Loving-Martin- Midland-Mitchell-Pecos-Reagan-Reeves County Plains-Scurry- Terrell-Upton-Van Horn and Highway 54 Corridor-Ward-Winkler.

NM...Winter Storm Watch from Friday morning through late Saturday night for Central Lea-Eddy County Plains-Guadalupe Mountains of Eddy County-Northern Lea-Southern Lea.

Extreme Cold Watch from Friday evening through Sunday morning for Central Lea-Eddy County Plains-Guadalupe Mountains of Eddy County-Northern Lea-Southern Lea.