textproduct: Omaha/Valley

KEY MESSAGES

- Low chances (20-30%) of storms clipping far southeast Nebraska overnight tonight.

- Milder temperatures are expected the next couple of days with highs in the upper 80s to low 90s.

- The best chance for widespread precipitation over the next several days will be Wednesday night through Friday morning, with a more substantial cool down for Friday and Saturday.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 1158 AM CDT Tue Jul 28 2026

Clearing skies this afternoon with temperatures already in the mid-to-upper 80s as of 11AM. Satellite shows broad ridging in the upper-level flow centered over western Kansas and the Texas Panhandle today, with a series of ridge-riding waves continuing to produce lingering showers over Kansas and Missouri. With the storm track set up farther south today, storm chances tonight are low, with only a 20-30 chance storms may clip our far southeast Nebraska counties.

Wednesday we'll be watching a trough move into the PacNW, amplifying ridging over the Missouri River Valley. This likely will lead to temperatures reaching a couple degrees warmer than today. With dew points staying in the mid 60s to low 70s, heat indices shouldn't get back up above 100.

Wednesday night into Thursday as the ridge shifts off to the east we'll see return flow from the south start to advect more moisture back into the region. At the same time a series of vorticity maxima will move through as the trough travels overtop the crest of the ridge in the upper-level flow. This will bring a few rounds of showers and storms starting overnight Wednesday through Thursday night. The most substantial round of storms will be Thursday night when the vort max moves through and is aided by enhanced shear along the nose of the nocturnal low- level jet. This could potentially lead to severe storms and heavy rainfall for somewhere across eastern Nebraska, western Iowa, eastern South Dakota or southwest Minnesota. This is also when storm chances from the NBM increase to 70 to 90 percent, indicating great agreement in our suite of models in showers and storms through this time period.

On the back-side of this system on Friday we see a fairly strong push of northerly flow bringing in cooler air out of Canada. Temperatures on Friday are only forecast to max out in the low- to-mid 80s. Smoke may be a greater concern on Friday right behind the front as subsidence likely will pull some of the wildfire smoke aloft down toward the surface.

Mild, dry weather continues into Saturday with temperatures starting to warm back up on Sunday into early next week. Clearly we just can't keep nice temperatures for long this time of year as another ridge builds into the Central Plains.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z WEDNESDAY/

Issued at 1158 AM CDT Tue Jul 28 2026

VFR conditions likely to prevail through the TAF period. With high pressure over the region, we could potentially see some smoke from aloft sink down toward the surface tonight into early Wednesday, but confidence is low that it will be thick enough to impact visibility. Winds out of the east or northeast will be shifting mostly toward the southeast this afternoon and staying mostly out of the southeast through Wednesday morning.

OAX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

NE...None. IA...None.