416
FXUS63 KDDC 092317
AFDDDC

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Dodge City KS
617 PM CDT Wed Jul 9 2025

.KEY MESSAGES...

- Slight Risk (Level 2 of 5) for severe storms late Thursday and
  Thursday Night, along and west of Liberal to Dodge to Russell,
  with the main severe weather risk damaging straight line winds
  to 70 mph.

- Widespread lower 100s for highs Thursday afternoon, especially
  along and west of Highway 283 and the Red Hills region. Very
  low relative humidity will keep Heat Indices at or below
  actual air temperature.

- Thunderstorms remain in the forecast late Friday/Friday Night
  and late Saturday/Saturday Night as the next cold front moves
  slowly across southwest Kansas.

&&

.DISCUSSION...
Issued at 310 PM CDT Wed Jul 9 2025

The mid-afternoon visible satellite imagery showed a clear sky
devoid of any cloud, including cumulus, across our southwest Kansas
region thanks to larger scale subsidence providing general sinking
air across much of the troposphere as well as lower dewpoints vs.
this time yesterday afternoon.

Thunderstorm chances in the first period (Tonight) will be very
small, and only confined to the far northeast area of our CWA (Ellis
County), as this will be the closest part of our CWA to tonight`s
eventual mesoscale convective system (MCS) that moves southeast
across southern Nebraska into northern Kansas late tonight. On
Thursday, a fairly intense (by July standards) shortwave trough will
move east across the Colorado Rockies/southern Wyoming, leading to
broad surface low pressure development from southeastern Colorado
into far southwestern Nebraska. It will also serve to increase low
level downslope momentum just ahead of the low with 850mb
temperatures warming to +30 to +32C across western Kansas generally
west of Highway 283. This will support widespread lower 100s for
high temperatures where dewpoint temperatures will also drop down to
as low as the upper 40s along/west of Highway 83. Very low relative
humidity will result in the upper teens to lower 20s percent out
west. Despite this, very high-based thunderstorms will likely
develop along the trough axis/low late in the afternoon, first
across far eastern Colorado then spreading into far western Kansas
early to mid evening. Damaging straight line winds to 70 mph will be
the greatest risk given the large inverted-V forecast soundings.
Eventually, given the increased large scale forcing for ascent, a
line of storms will likely form as cold pools take over with a
larger area susceptible to 55+ mph wind gusts out ahead of the
storms. For this reason, the latest SPC Day Two convective outlook
has expanded the Slight Risk (Level 2 of 5) area to include more of
southwest Kansas, generally along/west of a Liberal to Dodge City to
Russell, KS line.

Going forward into Friday and Saturday, western Kansas will find
itself beneath a general west-northwest pattern aloft as the 500mb
mean trough axis moves slowly east across the Northern Plains and
Upper Midwest. A cold front will follow this mid level trough axis
over the weekend, eventually pushing south across southwest Kansas
with additional storm chances along this front over the weekend.
Even as the front passes just to out south, it will slow down and
eventually stall out with post-frontal winds becoming upslope again
with good residual moisture in place (dewpoints mainly in the mid
60s with easterly component surface winds). This will favor
thunderstorm activity off the eastern Colorado higher terrain, as is
typically the case in a pattern line this...in addition to storms
developing in the low level convergence axis along the old front
itself. For this reason, much of the area will have 30-40 POPs
Friday Night and 30-50 POPs Saturday Night (highest southwest
Saturday Night).  After our hot day Thursday, temperatures will pull
back down into the lower 90s Friday and even cooler than that
Saturday. The air mass will slowly modify back to summer norms
Sunday and beyond, but there does not appear to be any very hot
afternoons coming up any time soon after Thursday`s hot day

&&

.AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z THURSDAY/...
Issued at 611 PM CDT Wed Jul 9 2025

VFR conditions will prevail overnight with the exception of
around the HYS terminal where a line of thunderstorms may move
through around 06-09Z lowering ceilings/visibility and
increasing wind. Winds will generally be from the south
overnight, becoming breezy by late tomorrow morning into the
afternoon.

&&

.DDC WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
None.

&&

$$

DISCUSSION...Umscheid
AVIATION...Hovorka_42