textproduct: Topeka

KEY MESSAGES

- A few strong to severe storms this evening, with damaging wind gusts and large hail being the main hazards.

- Conditional risk for a severe storm or two Sunday, and Monday. Favorable environment each day but not expecting much if any storm development.

- Slightly better chance for severe storms Tuesday into Wednesday as the main upper trough moves through. Temperatures stay warm.

- Another system moves in around Friday, with more rain and storm chances.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 215 PM CDT Sat Apr 11 2026

Persistent thunderstorms overnight delivered a swath of heavy rain across northern Kansas, with a narrow area of 3-7" resulting in flooding across parts of Washington, Marshall, and Nemaha Counties. These storms have weakened and moved off to the northeast, leaving behind a more well-defined warm front roughly along I-70. This warm front will gradually lift north through the afternoon, warming temperatures into the upper 70s and low 80s as clouds thin and winds turn more southerly. The environment along the warm front looks to be only weakly capped, with 2000 J/kg of ML CAPE and a veering wind profile 30 kts of shear. Thus if a storm does develop in this area, it conditionally would be in a good environment to be severe, with large hail and damaging winds. If we do see anything, it will likely develop over the next couple hours as a weak MCV seen on water vapor imagery slides across the state. However convergence along the warm front looks to remain weak, so confidence that we see any sustained storm is low, around 15-20%. Farther south, forcing from the MCV may allow for slightly greater storm potential. But shear is weaker away from the warm front, which should generally keep storms from getting too robust.

Conditional remains the theme for Sunday and Monday. We'll have a diffuse dryline set up towards central Kansas, with an unstable and moderately sheared environment to its east. However with generally neutral height falls and the diffuse nature of the dryline, confidence in seeing any storms develop along the dryline is low. Slightly better confidence in a cluster of storms farther east across east-central KS mid-day Sunday, a remnant of tonight's storms farther southwest over TX/OK. These look to mostly sub-severe though.

By Tuesday into Wednesday, we should finally see the upper trough lift northeast onto the Plains. Model guidance still shows some variability with the exact timing, but overall we should see better height falls as this occurs. Increasing shear with the mid-level trough will overspread the area along with still steep mid-level lapse rates. Details will remain dependent on the aforementioned timing and track of the mid-level and surface features, but broadly speaking severe weather potential looks highest these two days.

Behind this first system, we remain in southwest flow aloft for the remainder of the week. Thursday looks to see a minimum in rain chances as shortwave ridging moves overhead, followed by another strong upper trough for Friday. Lots of uncertainty at this time range, but increasing moisture advection ahead of a cold front will lead to rain and storm chances increasing again Friday.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z MONDAY/

Issued at 1233 AM CDT Sun Apr 12 2026

Gusty south winds will persist through the night. The main challenge with TAFs is timing the next round of rain, set to impact the TOP terminals Sunday morning. The most likely onset time for rain is between 13Z and 14Z. Chance for TS is low (20%), so have just include RA for now. Rain should exit by midday, and MVFR CIGS should lift to VFR early in the afternoon. Wind speeds will decrease slightly during the evening and into Sunday night.

TOP WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.