Radar — KMVX
Surface Analysis — Central U.S. (North)
Satellite
Nearest monitored road: North 5th Street (Primary)
- above average temperatures persist this week, with heat index values around 100 in the red river valley wednesday.
- there is a level 1 out of 5 risk for severe storms thursday, with 1 inch hail and wind gusts to 60 MPH the main impacts expected.
Issued at 242 PM CDT tue jul 28 2026
...synopsis...
Upper ridging continues to build into the plains and upper midwest through tonight and tomorrow. A few weak embedded vorts with some mid level moisture will continue to move across the area on top of the ridge, but not expecting more than isolated sprinkles. Most model solutions show a stronger shortwave riding over the top of the ridge wednesday night into thursday, with some amplification as it digs into mn. This should help push a surface trough/weak frontal boundary into the forecast area. The upper ridge builds back into the region for the weekend, with above average temperatures continuing. Southwest to westerly flow aloft seems to be the consensus from the ensemble members as we head into next week, which could bring a more active pattern along with more seasonable temperatures.
...heat tomorrow...
The warming trend that started today will continue into tomorrow as heights continue to rise. Even with some smoke aloft, most locations except the far northeastern counties should get to 90 or above tomorrow. With not much change in dew points that are currently in the 60S and low 70S, heat index values in the northern red river valley should get over 100 degrees. A bit drier and could be slightly below 100 in the central and southern red river valley, but href probabilities of getting above 100 index are over 60 percent in the fargo area. Wet bulb globe temperatures are also above 80 degrees and in the extreme category for portions of the red river valley. Went ahead and put out a heat advisory for most of the red river valley tomorrow afternoon.
...marginal severe risk on thursday...
Many of the cams break out some convection along the mt/nd border wednesday afternoon, then move it east wednesday night. There is a low chance that some of the cells will be holding together by the time they reach far western benson county early thursday morning, but many of the model runs just have the convective complex decreasing in intensity. Whether we get any convective redevelopment in the afternoon along the trough axis will depend on how exactly the morning plays out. At this point, the 50th percentile has 1000-2500 j/kg of CAPE over all but our far northwestern counties thursday afternoon, although deep layer SHEAR is fairly mid, around 25 to 30 KTS at most. Still, can't rule out some isolated severe cells so will continue with a marginal risk for thursday.
Issued at 1101 PM CDT tue jul 28 2026
VFR conditions will persist through the taf period with modest intermittent lower visibilities to 6 miles from smoke. Fog has a low probability of developing overnight but should be less severe than last night thanks to the surface high translating eastward. Winds begin to increase generally from the south with potential oscillations between southwest to southeast as a front approaches from the west. It appears likely that showers and thunderstorms will develop somewhere in western north dakota, progressing eastward towards the devils lake basin and eastern north dakota. For this reason, prob30 groups were introduced after 00Z at dvl, with the potential for further expansion eastward in a future issuance depending on confidence. Variable wind gusts up to 45 knots are possible with any showers/storms that make it that far east, but confidence is very low in this occurring.