textproduct: Pocatello

KEY MESSAGES

- Fog and low clouds will continue to affect some areas through Friday, especially during the overnight and morning periods, amid a continued quiet weather pattern for the region.

- A pattern shift is possible into the weekend with a trough moving through tomorrow which could clear out the daily fog and stratus. There remains uncertainty with this though.

- Continued dry into next week with a warming trend likely although valley inversions could wreck havoc with this.

SHORT TERM /THROUGH FRIDAY NIGHT/

Issued at 109 PM MST Thu Jan 22 2026

Afternoon satellite imagery shows widespread lower valley stratus back again after about a 6-12 hour reprieve. Temperatures have been slow to rise accordingly, yet again, and continued to significantly lower afternoon high temp forecasts and raise overnight lows accordingly. Based off the lack of any noticeable degradation of the cloud deck, seems unlikely that it'll erode this evening so it'll likely continue at least until the late morning on Friday. Outside of the lower valleys, sunshine remains in place with just some occasional mid-high level clouds. Tomorrow, upper level trough digs into the region bringing a push of cooler air and maybe just enough lift to support some low end PoPs across the higher terrain of the eastern highlands but that will be about it on the precip front. Winds will become more northerly during the day allowing for colder air to filter in to eastern Idaho. It remains unclear if this push will be enough to clear out the stratus from the region. NBM says yes, the forecaster remains a bit skeptical however. Hedged things and kept cloud cover in place into later in the afternoon tomorrow before allowing things to clear out into the overnight Friday and into Saturday morning. Model soundings show the inversion lingering though so it's possible that this lower valley stratus sticks around into the weekend. It's really just a wait and see at this point with confidence being quite low as models just don't have a good handle on things.

LONG TERM /SATURDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY/

Issued at 109 PM MST Thu Jan 22 2026

Weekend forecast remains highly dependent on the overall progression of the aforementioned inversions. Model guidance suggest a seasonably cool weekend with the region seeing a couple of cooler than normal days followed by a warming trend into next week as upper level ridging builds over the area once again. Ridging will keep the area dry into the middle of next week but the presence of continued inversions could make the lower valley forecast challenging once again. If we avoid stratus, we should warm nicely into the upper 30s to lower 40s each day. If we don't, much of next week could turn out to be like much of this week. Confidence is low with regard to the temps and stratus but high with regard to precip chances remaining extremely low across eastern Idaho into the middle of next week.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z FRIDAY/

Issued at 1044 AM MST Thu Jan 22 2026

LIFR stratus remains in place late this morning, impacting BYI, PIH and IDA. Satellite and cams put edge of stratus just south of SUN, so introduced a TEMPO this afternoon to lean into potential impact with return of southerly afternoon diurnal flow advecting that into the terminal. DIJ seeing some variation in the observation but area cams indicate stratus still widespread in the valley so there may be some short term amendments as the moisture sloshes around there early this afternoon. Still anticipating some breakup this afternoon similar to prior days, and especially considering approach of upper level feature that may provide some additional mixing. That said, the inversion does remain strong, and model soundings suggest that the feature may not be strong enough to completely wipe out the inversion and low level moisture. Thus leaned back into returning the LIFR CIGS/VIS for tonight. SUN should be the only site that returns to and remains VFR.

PIH WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.