textproduct: Omaha/Valley

KEY MESSAGES

- Rain will gradually push northeast through this evening, with some patchy drizzle into the overnight (10-20% chance). Additional rain chances expected late Wednesday into Thursday (20-40% chance).

- Cooler through Friday with some areas struggling to get out of the 40s. 50s and 60s return this weekend.

- Portions of northeastern Nebraska and west-central Iowa will have lows fall to around freezing Friday and Saturday mornings.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 151 PM CST Tue Nov 3 2026

Early afternoon analysis showed the cutoff low responsible for our widespread rain spinning along the southeast NE/KS border with rain and drizzle still falling across most of the area. There are also a few thunderstorms in the NE/KS/IA/MO border area which should continue this afternoon, but those should remain few and far between in our forecast area. Heaviest precip should exit to our northeast this evening, though guidance hints at some patchy drizzle lingering into the overnight hours. That said, model soundings do show a shallow dry layer at the surface with low level cold air advection leading to quite a bit of subsidence, so anything that does develop should be pretty patchy.

By Wednesday morning, the low is progged to be near the IA/MN border with some shortwave energy and surface trough rounding the back side and perhaps bringing some additional light rain to areas near the NE/SD border. Otherwise, the gusty northwest winds will continue, though a bit weaker, and will continue to usher in cooler air. Expect highs in the mid 40s to mid 50s with perhaps a little sunshine in southeast NE by late afternoon. The surface trough will continue southeast through the area on Thursday bringing some additional 20-40% rain chances to much of the area during the day. Precip should exit by Thursday afternoon with guidance in good agreement that we'll see very little additional accumulation. Expect a few hundredths to maybe a tenth of an inch.

Dry weather is favored Friday into the weekend as a shortwave ridge slides through and larger scale upper level ridging builds over the western CONUS, leaving us under northwest flow aloft. A few various ensemble members suggest some weak shortwave energy and associated light precip could slide through the northwest flow, but consensus of those solutions with precip keep any accumulation out of our area. For now, have only about a 5% chance of any rain this weekend. Otherwise, daytime temperatures will start to creep back up as we see less and less cloud cover heading through the weekend. Expect highs in the upper 50s and 60s Saturday through Monday. One final note, Thursday night and Friday night look to be the coolest nights of the week, with portions of northeast NE and west-central IA expected to see temperatures near or below freezing. Obviously, it's the time of year where those temperatures are pretty common, but given the recent warm weather, friendly reminder to keep an eye on the temperature forecast for your location and disconnect outdoor hoses and drain those sprinkler systems as necessary.

AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z THURSDAY/

Issued at 519 PM CST Tue Nov 3 2026

MVFR conditions are in place this evening, largely driven by ceilings just above FL010 at all three TAF sites, with IFR conditions expected to build in over the next couple of hours at KOFK first, followed by KOMA. Winds are the strongest that they'll be for the next 24 hours, only gradually losing speed from the nearly 30 kt gusts as of now, dropping off gusts and reducing sustained speeds by the end of the TAF period. The spotty visibility restrictions to 4-5 SM will continue to be possible over the next 6-10 hours, especially for KOMA where the best bet for drizzle is, improving to 6SM or better by 10 area- wide.

OAX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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