968
FXUS63 KSGF 120530
AFDSGF

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Springfield MO
1230 AM CDT Mon Oct 12 2026

.KEY MESSAGES...

- Elevated fire danger today with hot, dry, and increasingly
  breezy conditions.

- High confidence in temperatures 15-20 degrees above
  climatological averages today and tomorrow. Highs in the
  upper 80s to lower 90s will challenge some records.

- Increasing confidence in chances for widespread rainfall late
  Tuesday through Thursday, including a risk for heavy rainfall.

&&

.SHORT TERM /THROUGH TUESDAY/...
Issued at 1230 AM CDT Mon Oct 12 2026

Synoptic Overview:

Upper-air analysis reveals a building ridge over the Mississippi
Valley early this morning sandwiched in between the
disorganized remnants of Isaias and a longwave trough along the
Pacific coast. An embedded shortwave was lifting through the
Intermountain West, with an associated surface low situated
across Nebraska.

Elevated Fire Danger Today:

Strong warm air advection and diurnal heating will contribute
to a dry and moderately deep mixed layer this afternoon. The
tightening surface pressure gradient in response to the
eastward-shifting low pressure center will produce breezy
southwest winds that expand farther east than they did
yesterday. The strongest winds will remain along and west of the
Highway 65 corridor, where gusts of 30 mph will be common.
Hedging toward the NBM 75th percentile would support a few
gusts to 35 mph as well. To the east, gusts of 20-25 mph will be
more likely. The southwest winds will also advect slightly
greater moisture into the region compared to yesterday. The
lowest afternoon RHs are forecast atop the Ozark Plateau due to
afternoon mixing, where they will drop into the 25-30% range.
Elsewhere, RHs of 30-40% will be common. These factors, in
combination with dry fuels, will produce widespread Elevated
fire danger today. See the Fire section below for more detailed
fuel index information.

Near-record Heat Today and Tomorrow:

Substantial mid-level height rises and warm air advection will
allow for the well above-average temperatures to continue into
the beginning of the work week. Today looks to be a near
copy/paste of yesterday; that is, afternoon high temperatures
will reach near 90 degrees. Tuesday appears to be the hottest
day of the forecast period as global and hi- res models show 850
mb temperatures climbing into the 19 to 21 deg C range.
Associated surface temperatures are subsequently forecast to max
out in the low 90s F areawide. For reference, these
temperatures are about 20 degrees above the climatological
average for this time of year, and daily records will be
challenged or broken. See the Climate section below for more
information.

&&

.LONG TERM /TUESDAY NIGHT THROUGH SUNDAY/...
Issued at 1230 AM CDT Mon Oct 12 2026

Widespread Rain and Thunderstorm Chances:

Much of the day Tuesday will remain dry, but an approaching
shortwave trough will open the door for rain chances beginning
Tuesday night and lasting through Thursday.

As this wave shifts into the High Plains, an associated surface
front will gradually sag south into Missouri before eventually
stalling somewhere across the northern or central portions of
the state. What happens after that is less clear.

Inspection of ensemble clusters does reveal increasing
agreement among members in the evolution of the upper-level
pattern over the past 24 hours. The favored solution depicts a
closed upper-level cyclone digging into the southwestern CONUS
Tuesday into Wednesday before pivoting through the Midwest as a
northern stream shortwave digs out of Canada on Thursday. As
this occurs, tropical moisture is progged to be ingested into
the southwest flow, resulting in a plume of rich moisture
content ahead of the shortwave. Indeed, a glance at NAEFS
Ensemble Situational Awareness Tables reveals a strong signal
for high moisture content in forecast PWATs and specific
humidity across southwest Missouri and southeast Kansas.
Abundant moisture, warm air advection, and isentropic ascent
will aid in the development of showers and thunderstorms along
and ahead of the aforementioned cold front. Given the high
moisture content and possibility of training convection,
rainfall could be heavy where where these factors align. At this
point, however, this positioning of synoptic- scale and
mesoscale features remains the biggest forecast challenge when
it comes to the question of, "How much rain am I going to get?"
Notably, global models have trended slightly to the west over
the past 24 hours with their axis of greatest QPF, which would
mean less rain across the Missouri Ozarks. This axis will
continue to wobble over the next 24-48 hours, but forecast
trends will be monitored. All this said, confidence in at least
some rain between Tuesday night through Thursday is high. Rain
chances increase Tuesday night, are highest Wednesday afternoon,
and wind down late Thursday.

NBM 72-hr QPF Probabilities Tue-Thu:
>1 inch: 60-90%
>2 inch: 20-80%
>3 inch: 10-50%

Overall, the greatest probabilities listed above are along and
north of the I-44 corridor, while the lower probabilities are south
of the interstate. The WPC has outlined a large portion of the
forecast area in a risk for heavy rainfall through this period.
Many important details still need to be resolved at this point,
so keep up with the forecast if you are hoping for the rain.

If the aforementioned cold front sags far enough south into the
region Tuesday night into Wednesday, a low-end severe
thunderstorm threat could develop given the overlap of moisture,
instability, lift, and shear.

Cooler temperatures will move in behind this system, with near
to perhaps even below-average temperatures by the weekend.

&&

.AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z TUESDAY/...
Issued at 1230 AM CDT Mon Oct 12 2026

VFR conditions through the TAF period, but have included LLWS
to each terminal early this morning with a 30-35 kt low-level
jet overhead.

Southwesterly winds will increase by late morning, frequently
gusting between 20 and 30 kt.

&&

.FIRE WEATHER...
Issued at 1230 AM CDT Mon Oct 12 2026

A prolonged period with substantial rainfall deficits from late
Summer and into the Fall has contributed to worsening drought
conditions across southwest Missouri and southeast Kansas. The
latest Drought Monitor valid Oct 6 showed a continued expansion
of the D3 (Extreme Drought) and an overall categorical
degradation across the fire weather forecast area. Resultant
fuel moisture indices show similar trends. Woody FM readings
between 60-70 and Herb FM values of 30-60 suggest these fuels
are cured or very dry. Combined, these produce a Growing Season
Index (GSI) of 0.1 to 0.3, indicating fuel dormancy.
Furthermore, KBDI values greater than 600 (and in some cases
greater than 700) also suggest fuels are near or completely
cured.

While Red Flag Warning (RFW) conditions are not forecast to be
met in the next seven days, we will officially begin our fire
weather season messaging, and headlines will be issued should
RFW criteria be forecast from this point onward.

&&

.CLIMATE...
Issued at 1230 AM CDT Mon Oct 12 2026

October 12:
KSGF: 91/2024
KJLN: 93/2024
KVIH: 90/2024
KUNO: 87/1975

October 13:
KSGF: 88/2017
KJLN: 88/1952
KVIH: 88/1899
KUNO: 93/1989

&&

.SGF WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
KS...None.
MO...None.

&&

$$

SHORT TERM...Didio
LONG TERM...Didio
AVIATION...Didio
FIRE WEATHER...Didio
CLIMATE...Didio