388
FXUS63 KTOP 262317
AFDTOP

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Topeka KS
617 PM CDT Sun Apr 26 2026

.KEY MESSAGES...

- Complicated severe weather setup tonight. Likely two rounds of
  severe, one afternoon and another late evening into the overnight
  hours. The second round will carry the largest severe threat, but
  large hail, damaging winds will be a the main threat. A few
  tornadoes will be possible across the southeast counties late
  Tonight.

- A few storms may linger into Monday, but severe weather threat
mostly shifts to our east.

- Cooler pattern arrives for the rest of the week behind Monday`s
  cold front. A few chances for light rain by mid week.

&&

.DISCUSSION...
Issued at 201 PM CDT Sun Apr 26 2026

Early this afternoon water vapor satellite showed an upper level
trough across the Four Corners region.

A complex surface pattern showed a cold front extending south-
southwest from central NE into northwest OK. A warm front was located
from Alva, OK, east-northeast across northern OK, just south of the
KS/OK border.

Currently a QLCS was located across Dickinson County, southward to
Newton KS.  This QLCS will move east-northeast across much of east
central KS and portions of northeast KS through the mid and late
afternoon hours. Additionally, elevated storms may produce quarter
size hail across the northern counties of the CWA.

There is a component of 0-3KM shear vector perpendicular to the line
of storms may provide a low chance for weak and brief meso vortex
tornadoes as this line moves into a slightly more favorable
environment across east central and portions of northeast KS.
However, the primary threat with this QLCS will be damaging wind
gusts and large hail

The QLCS should exit the CWA after 4 PM and we may see a break in
the thunderstorm activity through much of the evening hours.

The cold front across western KS is not showing signs of frontolysis
and the newer CAMs are showing a surface low developing across
northwest OK and tracking northeast to ICT, then northeast into
the far southeast counties of the CWA. This will only allow the
surface warm front to reach south central and southeast KS. The
dryline will punch northeast from northwest OK into south central KS
late this evening. The CAMs continue to show the potential for
supercell thunderstorms developing across south central KS and north
central OK, moving east-northeast northeast into southeast KS. The
northern supercells may reach into the far southeast counties of the
CWA. If these supercell thunderstorms become surface based, they may
produce a few tornadoes, given forecast hodographs with strong
sfc-3km low-level shear. The uncertainty in a supercell being
surface based may preclude any damaging tornado threat during the
early morning hours of Monday. Elevated supercell will be possible
north of the warm front across much of northeast and east central KS.
These rotating storms may produce large hail and possibly isolated
damaging wind gusts. A few CAMs show the potential for training
thunderstorms across northeast KS where 2 to 4 inches of rainfall may
occur and cause some flooding of rivers and creeks. Therefore a
flood watch has been issued for the northeast and portion of east
central KS.

The next shift may need to issue a flood watch for our southeast
counties if training of supercell thunderstorms occur, but the
current thinking is these training supercells will remain southeast
of the CWA.


The storms should move east as a cold front pushes east of the CWA
during the mid and late morning hours of Monday.


We will see a break from the severe weather through the next 7 days.
The surface front will become stationary across central TX and
southern stream H5 troughs will move east across TX. There may be
some showers and thunderstorms Thursday into Thursday night as the
H5 trough passes south of the area and surface cold front pushes
southward across the CWA.

&&

.AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z MONDAY/...
Issued at 617 PM CDT Sun Apr 26 2026

TAFs will remain convection focused over the first half of the
period. Should continued to see a break in storms for the first few
hours o the period before storms move in from the south around and
after midnight. Some MVFR CIGs should precede storms with winds
returning back towards the southeast. Convection should exit east of
the TAFs by 7-8 AM Monday morning with winds veering towards the west
for the remainder of the period.

&&

.TOP WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
Flood Watch through Monday afternoon for KSZ010-KSZ011-KSZ012-
KSZ023-KSZ024-KSZ026-KSZ039-KSZ040.

&&

$$

DISCUSSION...Gargan
AVIATION...Griesemer