578
FXUS63 KMKX 270438
AFDMKX

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Milwaukee/Sullivan WI
1038 PM CST Wed Nov 26 2025

.KEY MESSAGES...

- Wind chills in the single digits tonight and Thanksgiving
  night.

- Increasing confidence for accumulating snow Saturday and
  Sunday.

&&

.UPDATE...
Issued 1035 PM CST Wed Nov 26 2025

No changes to the short-term forecast. This evening`s
accumulating snowfall has ended, leaving mostly dry weather
overnight with potential for a few flurries.

Sheppard

&&

.SHORT TERM...
Issued 254 PM CST Wed Nov 26 2025

Tonight through Friday:

Light snow showers continue across southern Wisconsin as a low
pressure system across the UP and northern Lake Michigan moves
east. These wrap around snow showers are within a good band of
700mb moisture and upper level cyclogenesis. As the low pulls
further east, snow will diminish from west to east late this
afternoon and evening. So too will the gusty winds start to
subside. The combination of light snow and strong winds with
gust to 50 MPH will continue to impact travel with blowing and
drifting snow reducing visibilities. Snowfall rates are around
a tenth of an inch per hour or less. There are scattered pockets
of slightly higher rates with larger flakes moving through
mostly central Wisconsin. These area are easily seen on radar
with reflectivity around 30 to 40 Dbz. North to south roads may
continue to see some impacts through tonight as winds very
slowly ramp down.

No major changes to the headlines here with both the Wind
Advisory and Winter Weather Advisory remaining in effect through
6 PM CST. Continue to use extra caution while traveling for the
Holiday weekend.

Cold air advection will start to kick in on the back side of
this low pressure system for the rest of Thanksgiving and into
early next week. Tonight kicks of the first of overnight
apparent temperatures (feels like/wind chills) dropping into
the teens to single digits. So while the winds are decreasing it
will still be a chilly one for anyone participating in a Turkey
Trot tomorrow. High temperatures will decrease by a degree or
two day by day with highs generally in the mid 20s to low 30s.

Thanksgiving day will be overcast with lingering gusty winds of
30 to 35 MPH. There is a very small chance (10-15%) for a few
flurries. Soundings show just a bit of saturation in the
dendritic growth zone so any lift could give us some scattered
to isolated flurries. This should be largely uneventful for a
lot of people with little to no additional snow accumulations.
By Thanksgiving evening winds will drop off quickly around 10 to
15 MPH.

Friday has high pressure approaching and moving through the
state leading to fairly quiet conditions. The biggest concerns
for this time period look to be cloud cover and temperatures
which will go hand and hand. Light winds and clear skies could
lead to some very chilly overnight lows both leading into Friday
morning and Friday night. Any cloud cover or inversions could
lead to some slight adjustments on temperatures.

Patterson

&&

.LONG TERM...
Issued 254 PM CST Wed Nov 26 2025

Friday night through Thursday:

We have begun to really dial in on this partially phasing system
expected to begin pushing through late Friday night through
Saturday night and possibly lingering a bit longer. This system is
considered phasing primarily due to the trough and associated
energy digging through the Pacific NW with additional embedded
shortwaves digging in behind it and eventually joining with the
main longwave trough. This introduces a level of uncertainty
with exactly how much this trough digs and how wrapped up the
system gets. This system overall will have plenty of forcing
mechanisms working in its favor for lift including, midlevel
WAA, nose of the LLJ, some UL jet coupling, lots of PVA, lake
enhancement and even some surface frontal impacts. In addition,
depending on where things line up we could even get a
significant bump in forcing from Fgen banding as that is
expected to bringing higher snowfall rates to an area in the
southwest Great Lakes region.

The latest guidance have trended this system a tick further
south, but at the same time has increased QPF for the entire
system. This has somewhat cancelled out some of the differences in
overall model output. The PWATs with this system are around 1 STD
above normal and the slug of gulf moisture with this system seems
suggestive of a higher QPF system. Tie that in with lower
thicknesses (1000-500mb) and surface temps in addition to good
DGZ depth and then we are talking about a higher SLR system with
limited wind to break down flakes. The latest trends and any
further trend south may take us out of the higher end Fgen banding
and thus higher end snows but the overall QPF may allow us to
still get decent snow totals.

There is certainly increasing concern with this event given the
baseline metrics with QPF and SLRs. Exactly how impactful this is
will depend on the track of this system and how wound up it gets
and where Fgen banding lines up. In addition, this does not
appear to be a situation where rain would be a concern at all
given how cold the system is as even a significant northward shift
would yield largely snow. The primary scenario that leads to
little to no snow for southern WI is a significant southward shift
with a tightly wound system and sharpened cutoff on the northwest
side of the system. Likely much of the CWA receives some snow with
this and things have trended higher due to the increased QPF but
concern for a continued southward shift definitely poses some
uncertainty that could easily change the complexion of this event,
significantly lowering snowfall.

Overall we expect snow to start to push in late Friday night and
continue through Saturday night and trending more likely that it
persists to some degree into Sunday. The higher snow rates seem
likely to occur primarily between late Saturday morning through
Saturday evening. Impacts to travel look likely for at least parts
of southern WI for the weekend.

Into Sunday lingering snowfall appears more likely in the latest
trends but generally the system appears likely to be pushing out
with higher pressure nudging in behind it. This system will likely
usher in even colder temperatures with Sunday night lows possibly
near 0 and Monday night lows, while more uncertain, likely in a
similar boat. This is due to the 1000-500mb thicknesses falling to
the 515-520dam range both nights. The question will become whether
we can get the radiational cooling necessary to hit that low,
depending on clouds and winds. In either case real feel temps are
likely to be in the negatives for much of the area both nights.

Lots of uncertainty beyond Tuesday with temperatures remaining
chilly but at least some models hinting at a weak system
Wednesday.into Thursday, which given the temperatures would
most certainly be snow. However, given the uncertainty at that
timeframe its tough to take anything real from models but its
worth mentioning given some decent agreement from models in the
UL pattern.

Kuroski

&&

.AVIATION...
Issued 1035 PM CST Wed Nov 26 2025

Low cloud ceilings linger tonight around the 2,000 to 3,500 ft
AGL level (MVFR or low-end VFR). Accumulating snowfall has ended
for the night, though we could yet see a few flurries (radar is
perfectly clear at the moment). Gusty northwest winds linger,
albeit slower than what we observed previously today (25-35 KT
gusts).

A similar story into Thursday, with cloud ceilings lifting a few
hundred feet (mix of MVFR and VFR) and breezy northwest winds.
Some additional chances for flurries, particularly in the
afternoon hours.

Sheppard

&&

.MARINE...
Issued 254 PM CST Wed Nov 26 2025

Low pressure around 29.3 inches across northern Lake Michigan
and the UP will continue east northeast crossing northwestern
Lake Huron late this evening. Strong winds across the southern
2/3rds of the lake will persist until midnight CST with Storm
Force gusts expected. The northern 1/3rd of the lake will have
winds increasing late this afternoon behind the low bringing
some Gale Force winds. A few high end gales will be possible.

Winds will start to diminish around midnight tonight bringing an
end to the Storm Force winds. Gales will continue through
Thursday and into Thursday night before completely subsiding
early Friday morning. Light westerly winds will set up across
the Lake Friday night and turn to southerly by Saturday morning.

Patterson

&&

.MKX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
WI...None.
LM...Storm Warning...LMZ080-LMZ366-LMZ565-LMZ567-LMZ669-LMZ671-
     LMZ673-LMZ675-LMZ777-LMZ779-LMZ868-LMZ870-LMZ872-LMZ874-
     LMZ876-LMZ878 until midnight Thursday.

     Gale Warning...LMZ080-LMZ366-LMZ565-LMZ567-LMZ669-LMZ671-
     LMZ673-LMZ675-LMZ777-LMZ779-LMZ868-LMZ870-LMZ872-LMZ874-
     LMZ876-LMZ878 until midnight Friday.

     Gale Warning...LMZ261-LMZ362-LMZ364-LMZ563 until 3 AM Friday.

     Gale Warning...LMZ643-LMZ644-LMZ645-LMZ646 until 6 PM Thursday.

&&

$$

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