textproduct: Omaha/Valley

KEY MESSAGES

- Cool temperatures and cloudy skies today with highs in the 70s expected. Light rain is likely (50-60%) across portions of eastern Nebraska - less rain in the far east and across western Iowa. - Another round of showers and thunderstorms likely early Monday morning with drying in the afternoon. - Periodic shower and thunderstorm chances continue next week, with high temperatures generally in the mid 80s.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 1130 PM CDT Sat Aug 22 2026

Sunday and Monday

A weak surface high remains in place across the Central and Northern Plains early this morning. Winds are light and there is a thin band of cirrus streaming across the area. With time this morning, winds will slowly veer to the south, but they may actually go calm at number of locations. While patchy fog in low lying areas is still possible near sunrise, there are a couple factors working against it. There is a slightly drier boundary layer after good mixing on Saturday and light northerly winds, plus being another day removed from rainfall across far eastern Nebraska and western Iowa. Also, mid-high clouds look to expand across the area between 4-7 AM CT, which would put a lid on the radiative cooling.

Stepping upward in the atmosphere, ridging over the Intermountain West leaves the local area in a northwest flow pattern both in the short term and beyond as the pattern looks to remain fairly stubborn over the next several days. There is a healthy fetch of moisture off to our west as well with a 1.25+" PWAT contour extending from west Texas to the Canadian border across the High Plains. There has also been expansive convection across the higher terrain overnight. Showers with embedded thunder are expected to walk across western and central Nebraska this morning. Instability and deep layer shear are minimal across the area this morning, so even thunder might be hard to come by across eastern Nebraska. Nonetheless, light showers are expected today along with more mid-level cloud cover. This will keep today's temperatures cooler.

It's sort of a rinse and repeat pattern on Monday with convection wrapping around the ridge to our west and working across the area. Convective initiation looks likely upstream in SD aided by pronounced 925-850mb WAA between 1am-10am Monday. MUCAPE is also a little better, ~500-1000 J/Kg, across northeast NE during this time with values diminishing south and east. A strong storm or two cannot be ruled out on Monday - especially near the SD/NE border.

Tuesday and Beyond

As previous discussions have mentioned, the northwest flow pattern will remain in place through the work week with periodic chances for showers and thunderstorms - generally weak in nature. It is really tough to pin down precip timing and amounts in patterns such as these. The forcing for ascent is hard to track with not much run-to-run continuity in the model guidance, and the forcing is often weak. While shortwaves embedded in the flow have the potential to kick of showers, they are hard to diagnosis beyond 24 hours. Nonetheless, we will have several more chances to add to our hot start in terms of August precipitation: Omaha - 5.37" (+2.08) Lincoln - 4.57" (+2.31) Norfolk - 5.12" (+2.55)

Looking at 500mb heights from the WPC cluster analysis (EPS/GEFS/CMCE) as we head toward the end of August, we still maintain positive height anomalies across most of the central U.S. Thus, no big cool downs appear to be on the horizon, although the ridge axis might shift 1-2 states to the west. That'd likely mean better chances for dry weather past Day 7.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z MONDAY/

Issued at 105 AM CDT Sun Aug 23 2026

VFR conditions prevail through much of the TAF period. Some patchy fog may develop early this morning although confidence in coverage and specific locations is low. This is due to cirrus expected to move into the region this morning which would inhibit some potential development. A few light showers with maybe a few rumbles of thunder will be possible through the day, particularly for KOFK and KLNK. Can't rule out a couple of showers (15-20%) at KOMA; however, the better chances will be to the west and southwest of the terminal.

OAX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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