textproduct: Topeka

KEY MESSAGES

- Patchy fog possible across much of the area through around sunrise.

- Very weak weather system works into the area overnight Tuesday into Wednesday morning. Could see a brief instance of light freezing drizzle especially north central areas.

- A nice warm-up remains on track into the end of the week and even extending into the weekend and early next week if the ridge is slow to move east.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 234 AM CST Mon Feb 2 2026

A broad and deep trough over the eastern CONUS continues to work offshore into the northern Atlantic. A northwest flow regime still in place across the local area into the northern Plains. A broader ridge continues to take shape over the western CONUS. An embedded minor shortwave trough is noted over southern Alberta into the northern Rockies which will arrive tomorrow night into Wednesday morning and provide the primary chance for precipitation for the week mainly across western portions of the area.

Early this morning, winds across much of the area have gone calm under a Col area situated between a low pressure system well to the northeast of the region and a high pressure cell well to the south of the area. High cirrus from spillover of a portion of the western ridge remain thin but likely still situated over the area based on satellite observations and relative ASOS sites reporting scattered clouds around 25kft. Thus, thinking the probability for any low- lying patchy fog to thicken to dense fog appears to be low unless sufficient clearing can take place over the next 2 or 3 hrs before sunrise. Still have low level moisture in place from recent snow melt so have maintained mention of patchy fog through sunrise.

Although impacts will likely remain very low into early Wednesday morning, this appears to be the time frame in the forecast where the risk is greatest for at most minor impacts, mainly due to traveling, across north central Kansas areas into late Tuesday night into early Wednesday morning. Have throttled back the POPs provided by the NBM due to ENS and GEFS, along with the entire supplementary data sets suggesting QPF amounts generally below 0.02" to a trace will be most likely. Given the 75th to 90th percentiles of the output data sets yield at most just below 30 percent chance POPs across spotty areas and trend mainly west of north central areas, have gone with 20-25% POPs generally west and northwest of Manhattan to Marysville areas. Forecast soundings are currently focused on the outcome of any precipitation to be -FZDZ as a shallow saturated layer develops for a few hours with lift decreasing. The DGZ doesn't appear to show much saturation, so have good confidence that the outcome of any precip for the time frame in concern likely would be in the form of - FZDZ if any does impact the area. Still time for the incoming shortwave to drift further east of the current forecast path but much of the forcing for ascent appears to track west of the area.

Trends remain on track suggesting that a warm-up is in store as the western trough broadens and shifts east over the central CONUS by the end of the week into the upcoming weekend. Rising heights should help push temperatures into the 50s and possibly 60 at times. Even with this trend, consider the spreads are still fairly wide but appear to be overall rising, so even high 40s look to be the lower end of the spread through the end of the week into early next week before a possible western trough digs into the Desert Southwest and may begin bringing in precipitation chances to the longer range forecast.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z TUESDAY/

Issued at 347 AM CST Mon Feb 2 2026

Calm winds and mostly clear skies have set up across the area. The low level winds based on radar profiles suggest the winds around FL010 to FL015 are around 15-20kts which is likely to keep any fog from becoming too thick. Nonetheless, expect slight vis reductions from BR through sunrise. There could be a repeat of this type of setup Tuesday morning but the winds are currently forecast to be slightly stronger so the BL may remain partially mixed through the overnight period. VFR conditions expected outside of any morning BR.

TOP WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.