Area Forecast Discussion

KEY MESSAGES

- Scattered storms Thursday afternoon through early Friday morning. Some storms could be strong to severe. Best chances east of I-135.

- Additional chances for showers and storms heading into the weekend. Strong to severe storms possible Saturday and Sunday.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 410 AM CDT Wed Apr 22 2026

TODAY THROUGH FRIDAY...

Early this morning, a vigorous deep layer trough continues to slowly progress eastward across the western CONUS. This will be the primary catalyst for the development of scattered storms Thursday afternoon. In the meantime, surface pressure falls across the High Plains (in response to the incoming system) will increase southerly winds today, and higher quality moisture will steadily increase across the area. Afternoon highs will generally rise into the 70s and 80s while overnight lows only drop into the 50s and 60s. The aforementioned moisture will struggle to make it farther west than I-135 for much of the day, so this drier air, paired with the warm and breezy conditions, will support a brief period of very high grassland fire danger this afternoon. Isolated convection cannot be ruled out across western Kansas this afternoon and evening, but this activity will likely remain west of Russell and Great Bend tonight.

The aforementioned upper trough will eject into the central and northern plains Thursday afternoon and bring a bout of scattered showers and storms to the area. Trends in the guidance have shown an embedded shortwave trough and the surface cold front moving into the region just a little slower than previous runs. Regardless, there should still be more than enough forcing to overcome marginal inhibition for scattered thunderstorm development along the advancing cold front as it merges with the dryline Thursday afternoon. With the slower progression of the front, the more widespread thunderstorm coverage looks to be generally along and north of US-54. Further south along the dryline, forcing for ascent will be a bit more nebulous. Thus, thunderstorm development and coverage will be more isolated and a lot more uncertain. Still the environment in the warm sector will be very bouyant (2500-3000 J/kg of MLCAPE) with more than sufficient deep-layer shear (likely over 40 knots) to support organized convection. With a linear storm mode likely along the advancing cold front, the primary concerns will be damaging winds and large hail. However, any discrete or semi-discrete storm along the dryline will be more capable of producing tornadoes given almost 200-300 m2/s2 of 0-1km SRH. Chances for storms will progress eastward during the nighttime hours of Thursday and into early Friday morning. Lingering showers and storms cannot be ruled out well into Friday afternoon across far southeast Kansas, but severe chances will be muted by that time.

THIS WEEKEND INTO EARLY NEXT WEEK...

Beyond Friday, guidance continues to show persistent southwesterly mid/upper flow from a developing subtropical jet remaining over the central and southern plains this weekend and into early next week. Mid-long range guidance seems to be trending towards a rather busy weekend with moisture returning to the area and multiple shortwave troughs passing over the area. A couple of rounds of strong to severe storms will be possible Saturday night into Sunday morning, and then Sunday evening into early Monday morning. That being said, there is still quite a bit of uncertainty in the forecast given that subtle details will likely cause big chances in what's expected this weekend. Stay tuned for updates to the forecast over the coming days. Going into early next week, mild and quiter conditions appear likely across the area.

AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z THURSDAY/

Issued at 1037 PM CDT Tue Apr 21 2026

Low clouds in MVFR/IFR category will overspread the area for late tonight into the morning hours on Wednesday. Low clouds will slowly scatter out from central Kansas towards south centralKansas by early afternoon. Meanwhile low clouds look to linger over southeast Kansas through much of the period. In addition, south winds will become strong and gusty over central Kansas this afternoon.

FIRE WEATHER

Issued at 410 AM CDT Wed Apr 22 2026

Gusty south/southwest winds alongside above normal temperatures and low humidity will support very high grassland fire danger in areas west of K-14 during the afternoon hours today and Thursday.

ICT WATCHES / WARNINGS / ADVISORIES

None.