11/12

Thursday: Mostly Clear, 48°F

Thursday Night: Partly Cloudy, 30°F 

Friday: Partly Cloudy, 45°F

Friday Night: Clear, 26°F

Saturday: Partly Cloudy, 47°F

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General Discussion: 

Calm and cold conditions are expected through the weekend, with the lowest temperature dropping to around 26°F. Cloud cover will increase from Thursday afternoon into Friday before clearing as colder and drier air moves in from the north. Temperatures will fall below freezing Saturday morning, so make sure to dress warmly and take precautions against the cold.

• Kim

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Forecasters: Kim, Lambert

Date Issued: 11/12/2026 9:00 AM CST

Technical Discussion: 

Key Messages:   

• Calm conditions into the weekend with a couple of instances of clouds.
• Temperatures approaching the low 20s early Saturday morning.

At 12z Thursday, strong northerly to northwesterly flow is occurring from 250mb all the way down to the surface. This will allow for dry air to remain in the area for most of the day, though some clouds near 850mb cannot be ruled out going into the evening. This moisture has been brought down from eastern Canada with the low-level jet that formed on the backside of a trough. Across the eastern US, this trough has deepened from nearly zonal flow across the US/Canada border to digging down with the base of its flow across Tennessee and North Carolina over the last couple of days. This trough brought a low-pressure system across the central US and the cold front Wednesday morning that had strong winds associated with it. A weak secondary cold front passed through overnight, with another weak, tertiary cold front passing through today. This third one is associated with more of a wind shift, with winds from the northwest shifting to the north, rather than stronger cold air advection. These surface features will slowly move across the US as a high-pressure center moves across southeast Ontario over the next couple of days. 

The upper-level pattern is much the same on Friday, with the upper-level flow very slowly shifting east through the day. A strong ridge behind this flow is setting up across the Rocky Mountains into the western Plains. On the West Coast, multiple strong mid- and upper-level troughs are moving through, causing widespread precipitation and winds at the surface. The southern trough weakens as it crosses the northern Mexican mountains, but the northern system remains with a surface low-pressure center around 965mb, weakening slightly as it approaches the West Coast Friday evening. The ridge in the central US is preventing this activity on the West Coast from quickly ejecting over the central US, suppressing the southern trough, and not allowing the northern trough to deepen and form a strong exit region.

On Saturday, the upper-level, mid-level, and low-level ridge will pass slowly overhead through the day, leading to cold temperatures early Saturday morning and weak winds with a slight southeast component through the day. By Saturday, the surface high-pressure center will be around the Wisconsin area. A low-pressure center in southern Alberta, along with broad, weakly lower pressures along and behind the Rocky Mountains, will cause winds across the Plains to be elevated through Saturday.

It is unclear how the pattern will develop after the weekend, so future forecasters should watch how it develops.

• Lambert