988
FXUS63 KLBF 271158
AFDLBF

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service North Platte NE
558 AM CST Thu Nov 27 2025

.KEY MESSAGES...

- Expect a cool but dry day for Thanksgiving.

- Travel will be impacted for the post-holiday period with
  wintry precipitation including snow and potentially light
  icing for Friday and Saturday with well below-normal
  temperatures.

- Outside of early Monday morning across southwest Nebraska, precipitation
  chances next week appear limited (< 25%) as temperatures
  return to seasonable values.

&&

.SHORT TERM /THROUGH TONIGHT/...
Issued at 415 AM CST Thu Nov 27 2025

Early morning satellite shows a deep upper-level low situated over
southeast Canada. Northwesterly flow extends from the mid Ohio River
valley west through the northern Rockies. A strong shortwave
disturbance was approaching the Pudget Sound and it is this feature
that will bring impacts to much of the Plains into the Midwest
beginning Friday and continuing through the weekend. While not as
cold this morning, early values range from upper teens to middle
20s. Winds are light and largely out of the west with some passing
mid and high level clouds.

For Thanksgiving/Thursday Night...high pressure across the Northern
Plains will continue to shift south through the Dakotas today.
Increasing local influence will act to stymie winds with a wind
shift line setting up across the heart of the CWA. Northerly winds
will prevail in the west with veering flow resulting in southerly
winds by this afternoon in the west. Another day of weak CAA across
the region, particularly north central Nebraska, and so opted to
decrease highs again. Utilized a NBM Median/MET blend which held
temperatures in the lower 30s across north central but allowed
southwest Nebraska to climb into the middle 40s. Skies will
gradually clear up some with partly to mostly sunny conditions
expected. The forecast high of 41F at North Platte would be the
coldest Thanksgiving since 2019. Meanwhile the 36F at Valentine is
considerably warmer than the 28F experienced in 2024. As high
pressure settles east late tonight, southerly flow will increase
across the area as a strong LLJ sets up. This should allow for
strengthening WAA to establish itself. The increased clouds with
moisture fetch should help keep temperatures on the mild side with
lows only in the middle 20s or roughly near to 5F above normal for
late November.

&&

.LONG TERM /FRIDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY/...
Issued at 415 AM CST Thu Nov 27 2025

Friday/Friday Night...expecting a more active stretch of weather to
begin the post-Thanksgiving weekend. Broad southerly flow will lift
a warm front north through the area. Strong isentropic lift focused
around the 290-300K surfaces will drive lift and lead to a fairly
large band of precipitation across South Dakota extending south into
northern Nebraska. Lift is generally focused below a shallow DGZ
thus snow growth efficiency will be muted. Nevertheless, thermal
profiles support all snow with snow ratios nearing 10-12:1 or
slightly below climatological normals. Southerly winds will
strengthen through the day and may support some modest blowing snow
concerns. HREF probabilities verify this thought with roughly 50%
probabilities of < 1SM visibility within this band. QPF from this
fast west to east moving band will be limited, however, far north
central Nebraska could see quick snow accumulations through the late
morning into Friday afternoon. For now, given light water
equivalents maxing out around 0.05-0.10", believe snowfall will be
limited to an inch and a half or less. As the more pronounced
shortwave dives southeast across the central Rockies, upper-level
dynamics improve and a surface low begins to take shape south across
Kansas. This will promote a deepening h85 low with strengthening WAA
across our eastern zones. This will result in broadening light
precipitation beneath a mid-level dry layer. The result will be loss
of ice nuclei and the threat for light icing in the form of drizzle
and/or light rain. For now, confidence in this is medium at best and
ice accumulations appear likely to be limited to a few hundredths at
best for central Nebraska and points east. As the surface low
deepens to the south and tracks into central Kansas, a cold front
will be drawn south quickly. Low-level moisture will be trapped
until the frontal inversion and while the low-level saturated layer
appears likely to reside to the right of the DGZ layer, enough
seeder-feeder processes from high level clouds moving in should
support majority if not all snow late Friday night into early
Saturday. Precipitation during this overnight period should move
south out of South Dakota and threaten the Highway 20 corridor
though this activity may struggle to make it much further south than
this.

Saturday/Saturday Night...snow potential will continue into Saturday
though larger breaks in active snowfall appear more likely than
previously thought. By daybreak, an approximate 1005 hPa low will be
moving east across southern Kansas. Aloft, northerly flow will
continue to draw in moist flow originating near the Great Lakes.
Continued CAA will push h85 temperatures into the negative teens, or
near the 10th percentile in NAEFS climatology. Daytime highs will
have tanked from Friday values, with only low 20s to low 30s
expected north to south. Lift will be weak and nebulous though the
profile will likely remain saturated which will allow for light snow
to continue. Given the lack of stronger forcing, snow rates will
remain light. Even so, strong winds will promote blowing light and
fluffy snow with a now nearly 2km deep saturated DGZ. Have
introduced a mention of blowing snow to help message likely travel
difficulties. Water equivalents of the expected precipitation will
remain fairly meager, generally only 0.05-0.10" in the heaviest
locations. Even with the more impressive snow ratios, snowfall for
the day will likely be limited to two inches or less for most of the
area. The heaviest of these amounts will again focus across far
north central Nebraska and perhaps, though disconnected, further
west towards the Pine Ridge as lee convergence off the Black Hills
looks to ramp up in the north-northwesterly low-level flow. Believe
most if not all accumulating snow should be tapering off through the
evening hours though some flurries may continue through daybreak
Sunday. Overnight lows will fall to single digits for all and with
the steady north winds, sub-zero wind chills appear probable. Values
should only fall to the 0 to -10F range, thus no cold headlines are
anticipated.

Sunday/Sunday Night...as noted yesterday, the daytime Sunday
continues to trend dry. Surface high pressure nearing 1035 hPa will
glance the area from the northeast. This should keep winds fairly
light and temperatures very cold. Daytime highs only range from the
upper teens to upper 20s northeast to southwest. Wind chills are
unlikely to exceed the middle teens degF across the region so folks
beginning to embark on their holiday return travels should be
prepared for the coldest day of the season thus far. Later in the
day, as southeasterly flow persists along the Front Range,
orographic lift should help support at least some light snow
developing. NWP guidance varies on northward extent of this new
activity with GFS/GEFS the more bullish solution depicting much of
southwest Nebraska seeing new overnight snow. Meanwhile, ECMWF/EPS
is more reserved and slower with the track off the higher terrain
off to the west. This latter solution suggests only light snow south
of I-80 while the GFS suggests much greater impacts possible. For
now, tend to side with the ECMWF suite given placement of upper-
level dynamics. Stay tuned.

Monday and beyond...upper-level trough axis will likely clear the
region through the daytime Monday. This will result in a quick onset
of clearing skies and dry weather once again. Amplified northerly
flow will be short lived as the next low-amplitude trough dives
southeast out of southwest Canada. This feature will dig south into
California with NWP all depicting a rapid cutoff of an h5 low. This
cutoff will then stall with enhanced mid-level flow overtop of it.
This will introduce the potential for quick hitting disturbances to
traverse the region though the day-to-day predictability of these at
this range is limited at best. Extended ensemble guidance shows
fairly noisy output as a result and this is to be expected given the
pattern.

&&

.AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z FRIDAY/...
Issued at 556 AM CST Thu Nov 27 2025

Expect mainly VFR conditions through the forecast period.

Main aviation concern will be the threat for a quick moving snow
band across northern Nebraska early Friday morning. Have added a
mention of -SN to account for this at VTN but expectation is for
intensity to be fairly light, increasing to the east of the
terminal. Will mention brief MVFR conditions to account for
this.

&&

.LBF WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
None.

&&

$$

SHORT TERM...NMJ
LONG TERM...NMJ
AVIATION...NMJ