156
FXUS63 KDDC 261935
AFDDDC

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Dodge City KS
235 PM CDT Sat Sep 26 2026

.KEY MESSAGES...

- Areas of fog likely with 2-4 hour period of dense fog possible
  along/northeast of a Ness City to Pratt line, centered around
  sunrise Sunday.

- The next major rainfall event is beginning to come into better
  focus as remnants of tropical system Polo interacts with a
  polar jet stream system.

- A 48 to 72 hour period of rainfall, heavy at times, most
  likely from Tuesday into late Thursday Night/early Friday with
  probability of 1"+ already in the 70-80% range over a 48 hour
  period ending 7 PM CDT Thursday (from this morning`s NBM run).

&&

.DISCUSSION...
Issued at 230 PM CDT Sat Sep 26 2026

Early morning showers and isolated thunderstorms across central and
south central Kansas moved off to the east fairly quickly resulting
in sunny sky. Remnant low level moisture will remain across much of
western and central Kansas despite the passage of the shortwave
trough, due to absence of low level cold/dry advection from the
north. This will likely set the stage for development of fog,
especially up north. 12Z HREF probs show 40-60% chance of 1/4 mile
visibility or less generally along/northeast of a Ness City to
Kinsley to Pratt line, so we will add in some areas of fog early
Sunday morning across these areas. Any early morning fog should
scatter out to a sunny sky by mid to late morning. This will likely
result in a delayed warm-up, but even these areas up northeast
should still top out in the upper 70s to near 80 for late afternoon
highs. Highest temperatures in the mid to upper 80s likely along the
Oklahoma line in the Red Hills region.

A major, potentially long-duration rainfall event is expected to
unfold from New Mexico northeast across West Texas into southwestern
Kansas mid to late week (particularly late Tuesday through
Thursday), as deep Pacific moisture from remnant tropical system
Polo interacts with low level gulf moisture and a polar trough axis
digging down into the Southwest. All major global models and their
associated ensemble systems are starting to line up in a large
scale, potential excessive rainfall event which would include much
of southwest Kansas and the surrounding region. Modeled precipitable
water (PW) fields are exceedingly high for a large area for a
prolonged period of time, which is quite unusual (i.e. PW of 1.60"
for a 48-hr period Late Monday evening through late Wednesday
evening with highest prob 1.75"+ at DDC of 23% Tuesday Night).

The mid to late week meteorology will be very interesting to see
unfold as the deep tropical cyclone remnants become infused into the
slow-moving polar trough, effectively forming a large extra-tropical
cyclone which would likely move very slowly east across the
Southern/Central Plains upon development. This new low would have
unrestricted gulf moisture infusion as well, and the end result
could be very high 3-4 day rainfall totals well in excess of two
inches over a fairly large area. The latest 13Z NBM run this morning
has a 90th percentile 48-hr QPF of around 4 inches over much of
Kansas, Oklahoma and North Texas/Texas Panhandle. For this reason,
the WPC Excessive Rainfall Outlook will carry a SLIGHT Risk across
all of our DDC CWA Tuesday and Wednesday with a MODERATE Risk
including our far southwest Kansas counties Tuesday. The Wednesday
excessive rainfall outlook may be upgraded as well as confidence
increases in high rainfall amounts over that 24-hour period.

&&

.AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z SUNDAY/...
Issued at 1148 AM CDT Sat Sep 26 2026

A surface trough axis moving east across western Kansas tied to
the departing upper level trough axis will stall out, resulting
in weakening surface winds late afternoon through tonight and
into early Sunday morning. Areas of fog are likely to develop as
temperatures fall to the dewpoint early Sunday morning,
especially up around Hays. As such, we have lowered visibility
at HYS to 1/2 mile given fairly high confidence in fog
development. In fact, 12Z Saturday HREF ensemble shows 40-60%
probs of 1/4 mile or less visibility at HYS in the 12-15Z time
frame. Areas of fog may expand as far south as DDC, but the
probability of that occurring is still too low to add into this
TAF.

&&

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

&&

$$

DISCUSSION...Umscheid
AVIATION...Umscheid