Area Forecast Discussion
Issued by NWS Quad Cities, IA IL
Issued by NWS Quad Cities, IA IL
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865 FXUS63 KDVN 120810 AFDDVN Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Quad Cities IA IL 210 AM CST Wed Nov 12 2025 .KEY MESSAGES... - Warmer and dry through Saturday, with temperatures as much as 15-20+ degrees above normal Friday into Saturday when some near record warm lows and highs are possible. - Next chance for measurable precipitation is not expected until early to mid next week. && .SHORT TERM /THROUGH TONIGHT/... Issued at 209 AM CST Wed Nov 12 2025 A cold front continues to push through the region early this morning with little in the way of fanfare aside from a wind shift to the northwest, occasionally gusty. Aloft, some cirrus was moving in attendant to an upper level jet. This will pretty much be the theme of today, gusty winds and sun mixed with some high level clouds. The combination of a surface pressure gradient and daytime mixing will lead to winds once again gusting 25-35 mph at times, but today the direction will be from the northwest. While this typically means colder, in this case the airmass post-frontal is downslope modified. As a result, highs today look to be actually warmer from those of Tuesday, and generally range from around 52F NE to 60F SW with 925 hPa temps of +5C to +9C mixing dry adiabatically to the surface with plenty of sun and also some high clouds. Depending on the extent of the mixing and surface drying, there could be an elevated field fire danger risk this afternoon, mainly across far SE Iowa, NE Missouri and portions of WC Illinois, which didn`t receive nearly as much moisture from the system this past weekend. Tonight, many skywatchers will be closely monitoring the cloud forecast, as we will have another opportunity at a magnificent aurora display with a G4 Geomagnetic Storm Watch in effect from the Space Weather Prediction Center. An upper level jet streak should foster some high cloudiness, but overall 1000-500 mb RH at around 35-45% should limit the opaqueness making it largely thin enough to not inhibit viewing. It will be chilly though, with temperatures dropping through the 40s and into the 30s for many areas by late evening, heading for the upper 20s to mid 30s for lows. Winds should be much lighter and thus not too much of an added wind chill. && .LONG TERM /THURSDAY THROUGH TUESDAY/... Issued at 209 AM CST Wed Nov 12 2025 An amplifying ridge of high pressure will continue to build into the region by Saturday morning. This will keep dry conditions heading into the weekend, with temperatures warming above to much above normal. The warmest days look to be Friday and Saturday when an anomalously warm thermal ridge with 850 mb temperature anomalies of +10C to +15C traverses the region ahead of a cold front. LREF cluster analysis continues to show some timing and amplitude differences of the pattern with the northern stream trough passing through the ridge, but essentially 3 of the 4 clusters are progressive with the wave and attendant front into the early part of the weekend. Nearly all of the short term deterministic models are agreeing and support a cold frontal passage on Saturday. Given once again some modification of the airmass via downslope this effect on sensible weather is not much to alter the message of above normal warmth. Case in point the NBM Interquartile ranges are only 2-4 degrees, thus supporting high confidence on warmer than normal temperatures. From the SPC sounding climatology the progged 850 mb temperatures of +13C to +15C by 00z Saturday would be above the 90th percentile and near max for all DVN RAOBs for the 14th of November. Overall, thermal parameters support highs Friday and Saturday in the 60s with some areas near 70 or in the lower 70s, particularly south and east. These would be potentially near record highs, which are roughly in the range of 69-75F across the main climate sites. The frontal passage on Saturday looks to be dry with mainly only upper level moisture. The drying trend extends through Sunday as dprog/dt of LREF 500 mb heights continues to show slowing down of the energy in the southwest, which is fairly typical. Thus, Sunday should be another nice day with near normal highs in the 50s to near 60 and lighter winds as surface high pressure builds into the region. Our next chance of measurable precipitation is not slated to arrive until Monday or Tuesday, attendant to the shortwave energy ejecting from the southwest. Forecast confidence is low however, as there remains quite a bit of uncertainty in the timing, strength and track of the shortwave. In fact, WPC cluster analysis from 12z Tuesday offered very good agreement between the 4 clusters keeping the shortwave over the Great Basin area through 00z Wednesday. Thus, if anything we could see the precipitation chances being delayed or pushed back even further toward mid to possibly even late next week. That said, some of the deterministic medium range guidance and ensemble means of CMC, GFS and ECMWF offer a lead wave ejecting out early next week potentially not being resolved well by cluster analysis due to lower amplitude nature. So, for now we`ll continue to maintain the broad 30-50% PoPs Monday into Tuesday, but will obviously need to keep an eye on trends in the days ahead. && .AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z THURSDAY/... Issued at 1032 PM CST Tue Nov 11 2025 Winds remain the primary challenge as VFR conditions will persist through the TAF cycle. Winds are expected to remain gusty to 25 kt through Wednesday. There is the potential for LLWS later tonight, but it appears to be marginal in nature and have continued to keep any mention out for now. KDBQ would be most favored for any LLWS if it were to occur, and we`ll continue to monitor observational data and amend if needed. && .DVN WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... IA...None. IL...None. MO...None. && $$ SHORT TERM...McClure LONG TERM...McClure AVIATION...McClure