textproduct: Western and Central Wyoming

KEY MESSAGES

- Isolated showers into the early Thursday morning for central and northern Wyoming (~20% coverage).

- Warmer and breezy Thursday afternoon with 20-30% coverage for scattered rain showers and isolated thunderstorms for many of the same areas. - Dry and warming trend into the weekend and early next week.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 100 AM MDT Thu May 7 2026

IR depicts a minor shortwave propagating across the northwest flow aloft to the north. This is bringing some isolated showers for portions of northern/central parts of the CWA through the early Thursday morning hours with no impacts expected. The meridional longwave pattern continues to the north of the state with the PFJ remaining across southern parts of Canada to Montana then through the Dakotas and upper Great Lake region. With the aforementioned northwest flow aloft and sufficient divergence for Thursday afternoon, a strengthened gradient near the surface will give way to gusty winds across much of the CWA seeing gusts as high as 35-40 mph for southern and eastern counties for the lower elevations outside of the higher mountains. There will be enough instability for portions of central to northern Wyoming (~300-400 J/kg) and decent lapse rates to render some isolated thunderstorm activity. Best chances (20-30%) will be from south of Cody off the Absaroka foothills to the Owl Creeks/southern Bighorns. There may be an isolated storm before sunset for Johnson County as well near Buffalo, with gusty outflows the main hazard to speak of outside of the lightning activity. Regardless of the amplitude of the activity, these will diminish by sunset and towards midnight Thursday. QPF amounts look to be minimal as these will have progressive movement with southeast storm motion throughout.

Beyond that, expect clearing and another warm and breezy Friday afternoon into Saturday as northwest flow continues aloft. Another subtle shortwave will affect portions of the north/central parts of the state with minimal impacts once again Saturday afternoon. Similar conditions as Thursday afternoon/evening for Saturday, with ridging building back in from the west for Sunday and into next week. Ample convergence aloft will yield even warmer temperatures into next work week with widespread 80s expected east of the Divide/70s to the west. Upper level higher heights continue to build throughout the week with the next system to look at not until week's end into the following weekend looking to be more potent according to the more accurate EC for long term solutions.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z FRIDAY/

Issued at 1041 PM MDT Wed May 6 2026

Light showers have started to move into far NW WY this evening, and will bring a small chance at KCOD/KWRL and KJAC during the next few hours. A couple strikes of lightning are noted to the northwest in MT, so this is possible as this round of showers moves through overnight. A brief period of clearing skies is expected Thursday morning, before another round of showers and thunderstorms bubbles up east of the Divide. With better possibility of TS during peak heating, have added some TEMPO thunder groups for KCOD/KWRL and KCPR. There is an outside chance some thunder may approach KRIW/KLND as well, but confidence is not currently high they will drift this far south, so have left out for now. All showers will be dissipating around 00Z/08 with loss of daytime heating.

Sites west of the Divide will not see showers tomorrow, with only issue being gusty winds. KJAC will be gusting near 20kts, KBPI/KPNA gusting 25kts, and KRKS gusting 35 to 40kts through the afternoon. Winds will relax around sunset Thursday evening.

Please see the Aviation Weather Center and/or CWSU ZDV and ZLC for the latest information on icing and turbulence forecasts.

RIW WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.