Key messages
- A high wind watch was issued for the wind prone areas Saturday for gusts potentially up to 60 mph.
- Drier and milder weather expected this weekend into early next week.
Short Term /Through Saturday Night/
Issued at 306 AM MDT Fri Oct 16 2026
There are a few clouds over the Nebraska Panhandle that prevented temperatures from plummeting over night compared to the regions along and west of I-25 in Southeast Wyoming. It's a little uncertain if there is enough time left for the Panhandle to cool down enough overnight to justify the freeze warning but that region was left in just in case. Otherwise almost all of Southeast Wyoming minus Goshen County is 30 degrees or below already at 2am. With the snow pack being "fresh" but relatively thin it was a challenge to determine how low to drop the temperatures west of the I-25 corridor. A blend of HRRR, NBM, and Canadian was used for temperatures west of I25 and a blend of HRRR and NBM was used for areas east of I-25 and into the Panhandle. Looking at the ensembles GEFS was the highest for the overnight temperature at KLAR at 25 degrees and the Canadian Ensemble was the lowest at 16 degrees but the canadian does have a history of capturing those colder events the best. The Euro ENS was in the middle at around 19F so the overall overnight temperature for Laramie stayed around there. This afternoon the upper level ridging will help advect in some warmer air to help rebound the afternoon temperatures into the 50's for a nice seasonable day in our forecast area. The hourly trend for temperatures is probably the hardest part to try to forecast correctly since half the forecast area had a slight snowpack to help really cool things down overnight and the over half is still relatively bare ground since almost all the precipitation came down as rain 24-36 hours ago. But otherwise this ridge will keep the skies relatively clear and temperatures relatively seasonable as the cold air moves off into the east. Tonight into Saturday morning things get a little more interesting as an area of high pressure starts to briefly develop over the Northwest corner of Colorado. This bubble of high pressure looks to tighten our pressure gradient across Southeast Wyoming to give us another taste of a Wyoming winter. **enter GOT meme of Ned Stark here** A high wind watch was issued for I-80 corridor near Arlington and I-25 Bordeaux at 6am (12z) through 7pm (01z) for wind gusts up to 60 mph. With this being a primarily a gradient driven event its kind of hard to gauge the timing however the Craig to Casper 850mb gradient exceeds 50m around 12z and drops below 50m around 18z. But there are some blips of increased intensity at the 700mb level past 18z so the watch ends at 01z around the time the sun goes down and the 700mb jets really drops off. Also, without the definitive support of the 700mb jet it also makes it a little difficult to forecast definitive high wind intensity but this is also where pattern recognition from local forecasters really kicks in as opposed to forecasters sitting in office on the east coast forecasting at a national level. There's a higher level of confidence in the winds being between 50 and 60 mph with this event in our wind prones then generally saying the winds will definitely exceed 58 mph as implied with a High wind warning. Our in-house wind model also depicts momentary blips of high wind speeds giving more confidence into the 50 to 60 mph scenario for Saturday morning and afternoon thus supporting a watch issuance than a warning. Winds were also increased from the NBM as they were a little low but the NBM did at least capture a slight uptick in the winds compared to surrounding area. Finally, the last piece of evidence in the elevated winds forecast came from the Omega fields of the Global models. Looking at this field there is a slight mountain wave feature with the rising and sinking motion of the atmosphere. While its not the strongest sinking and rising motion typically seen in our winter high wind events, the signal was still there and even weak mountain waves have been known to produce wind gusts strong enough to produce winds exceeding 55mph. Temperatures will drop once again Saturday night but with the 700mb temps staying around 6c surface temperatures should stay around the mid 30's and 40's overnight. &&
Long Term /Sunday Through Thursday/
Issued at 135 PM MDT Thu Oct 15 2026
The long term will be mostly controlled by high pressure ridging, though several embedded disturbances will help to disrupt this feature from growing stronger and brining much warmer conditions, while modest moisture should bring at least a weak chance of precipitation through this period. The long term starts with upper level high pressure controlling much of the southeastern US and extending up towards our region, while a weak low off of the southwestern California coastline moves inland and up towards the Four Corners region while continuing to weaken. This system, while weak and mostly non-impactful, will at least help to stave off the ridge from strengthening over the region while also bringing a quick and weak shot of moisture that should fuel a few weak upper elevation showers in the region. We will be clearing out on Monday again before flow turns more southerly to southwesterly on Tuesday as a deep Pacific low begins to approach the west coast and then moves inland through the end of the forecast period. This will continue to stream moisture in, allowing for further increasing chances of upslope induced precipitation that will be aided by embedded weak shortwaves within the flow, though once again not expecting significant accumulations from this activity. Under this pattern look for temperatures to remain largely the same through the long term as highs sit generally 5-10 degrees above normal (60's to upper 70's), with portions of eastern Wyoming and the Nebraska Panhandle nearing 80 degrees, but currently not expected to reach this warm. Otherwise, with no significant features present over our area, look for largely benign conditions until likely just beyond the long term into the weekend after next. There is overall moderate to high confidence in the forecast as ensembles and their clusters are largely similar in their expectations of the evolution of this pattern, though discrepancies begin to arise on how quickly the Pacific low at the end of the forecast will move inland, but this shouldn't create drastic changes at least to this forecast period.
Aviation /06Z Tafs Through 06Z Saturday/
Issued at 1100 PM MDT Thu Oct 15 2026
VFR conditions will prevail across the terminals for the duration of this TAF period. There is a slight chance that FZFG may develop overnight at KLAR, however confidence is low and kept any mention out of the TAF for this forecast issuance. Breezy northerly winds at KCYS and KSNY may continue for several more hours before subsiding to less than 10 knots overnight. Expect these lighter winds to continue into and through Friday afternoon.
Cys Watches/Warnings/Advisories
WY...Freeze Warning until 9 AM MDT this morning for WYZ101-102- 104>111-113-115>119. High Wind Watch from Saturday morning through Saturday evening for WYZ106-110. NE...Freeze Warning until 9 AM MDT this morning for NEZ002-003- 019>021-054-055-095-096.
SHORT TERM...MM LONG TERM...CG AVIATION...RZ