North Platte, Nebraska

• Precipitation continues through Tuesday morning, with the most widespread rainfall expected Monday night.
• Strong northwest winds are expected behind a cold front Monday night, with a threat for wind gusts in excess of 50 miles per hour.
• Strong, gusty northwest winds are expected to continue through the day on Tuesday, with gusts of 50 miles per hour remaining possible.
• Cooler, drier weather returns mid week into the weekend. Though precipitation may return next weekend, confidence remains low at this time.

Currently, broad warm advection persists across the area amid southeasterly flow, in response to broad surface cyclogenesis across eastern Colorado and Wyoming. This isentropic ascent has led to persistent stratus, light rain/drizzle, and patchy fog through much of the past couple days across the area. Temperatures remain steady in the lower to middle 50s across the area.

For today and tonight, expect the cloud cover to remain in place through the entirety of the day, with temperatures this afternoon only climbing a few degrees into the low 60s. As with today, cannot rule out periods of light rain and drizzle, especially this evening and tonight. This is in response to a quickly northward lifting warm front, which looks to bring a narrow tongue of upper 50s to potentially low 60 dewpoints into the area from south to north. This will also coincide with the approach of the primary upper low, as it begins to eject east into the Rockies. This increases ascent aloft, and promotes increasingly steep lapse rates. MUCAPE increases as a result, and this increasing elevated instability overspreads the area tonight into tomorrow morning. Widespread showers and a few embedded thunderstorms should quickly advance ahead of the surface warm front, overspreading the Sandhills and northern Nebraska tonight. This precipitation will then lift into South Dakota Monday morning, but not before leading to beneficial rainfall amounts for areas generally north of HWY 2. With surface low pressure continuing to deepen off to the west today, winds will continue to increase from the southeast. Expect widespread southeasterly wind gusts as highs as 30 to 40 miles per hour across the area this afternoon.

By tomorrow, the surface low will begin to eject east into western Nebraska, passing through the area from west to east Monday afternoon. The passage of the surface low should briefly lead to a lull in precipitation coverage, before the surface cold front passes through the area and a deformation axis begins to pivot into the area from the west. Guidance continues to suggest that the cold front will largely clear the area by mid-afternoon Monday, and keep the majority of convection associated with this boundary off to the east by Monday evening. Still, this will need to be monitored closely, as a strong to possibly severe storm cannot be ruled out should the frontal boundary progress through the area even a little bit slower than guidance indicates. This may also bring a brief period of clearing skies Monday afternoon immediately ahead of the front, and this could boost temperatures into the middle to upper 60s east of HWY 83.

The main impact will be strengthening northwest winds with the passage of the cold front, as strengthening cold advection promotes ample mechanical mixing. As the upper low begins to depart to the east by Monday night, H7-H85 flow quickly strengthens to 50-60kts. The aforementioned mechanical mixing should be enough to promote some of this higher momentum flow to the surface, and lead to a very windy Monday evening and overnight. In fact, guidance continues to suggest a threat for 55+ mph gusts, and a High Wind Watch may be needed should confidence continue to grow. These strong winds will also coincide with the aforementioned deformation axis precipitation, though it appears this should all fall as rain. In all, this points to a very miserable Monday night, with strong winds, rain, and wind chills falling into the 20s.

As the cold front continues to track through the region on Tuesday, wrap around precipitation from the low pressure system should quickly wind down through the day, and mostly be out of the area by the late afternoon to early evening. Guidance continues to trend towards an earlier arrival of the front, which should end precipitation a bit earlier across portions of western Nebraska. With the precipitation largely expected to be finished across western Nebraska by the morning, it now appears there will be very little overlap with cooler air aloft, which should keep all precipitation as rain. Will still keep an eye on the potential for a little snow to mix in around Pine Ridge if the front tracks slower than guidance suggests. The main impacts will remain the strong, gusty northwest winds as the low remains in the vicinity. Still expect to see sustained winds of 20 to 30 mph throughout the day, with gusts of 45 to 50 mph lasting through the evening.

Cooler, drier weather then settles in for the rest of the week. Highs are only expected to climb into the 50s through the weekend, with lows in the lower to mid 30s. These highs are not unusual for early November, as our typical highs start around 58 degrees, dropping to around 55 degrees by the end of the first week of November. Our lows are expected to remain slightly warmer than usual, as typically overnight lows the first week of November are around the mid 20s.

By the weekend, another upper level trough is expected to track across the northern Plains, which may provide the forcing for another surface system to bring precipitation across the region. At this time, confidence remains low in placement and timing of the trough, so confidence remains low for precipitation as well. However, will continue to keep an eye on this, as this system may bring our next chances for precipitation.

Stratus and patchy drizzle are observed across western and north central Nebraska tonight, bringing widespread MVFR to IFR conditions. Through the night, these conditions will mostly prevail, with potential for some patchy fog development across southwest Nebraska in the predawn hours. However, southerly winds are expected to increase by mid morning, with gusty conditions across most of the region by late morning, which should end the concern for fog. Southerly gusts are expected to reach peaks around 25 to 30 knots throughout the afternoon. The stratus is also expected to remain, keeping widespread MVFR to IFR conditions through the afternoon. Rain chances increase by the evening, with rain expected to persist through Tuesday. As rain increases, expect IFR to LIFR conditions.

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