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Dangerously cold temperatures return to south central Nebraska this week, along with the potential for high wind gusts and a mix of freezing rain and snow on Friday and Saturday.
Meteorologist Aaron Mangels from the National Weather Service in Hastings warned that precipitation could create icy patches on roads.
“We could catch a very brief period of some light freezing rain and sleet Friday morning,” Mangels said. “This is not widespread, but a light glaze is possible. We're calling it a 20% chance, just enough to cause some spotty, slick roads during the morning hours on Friday.”
Mangels said the sleet could compound with leftover snow from Tuesday’s winter storm and create travel issues before noon on Friday.
“This is also going to be coinciding with potentially some minor blowing snow, causing some blow-over snow onto roads,” Mangels said.
Wind gusts up to 35 mph are expected as well, causing wind chills in the negative teens over the weekend. More snow could come between Monday morning and Tuesday night.
By Friday night and Saturday morning, chances of snow are lower, but the Hastings NWS predicts light snow on Monday and Tuesday.
“We could put down a little bit more white snow in the Monday-Tuesday time frame, but that is still pretty uncertain as well,” Mangels said. “Then we move to Wednesday, Thursday, we're going to have a lot of subzero temperatures, potentially in the teens below zero, similar to what we had this morning.”
Hastings saw a record low temperature of negative 13 degrees Thursday morning. The Hastings NWS station said on X that a normal low temperature for this time of year is 19 degrees.
Most of Nebraska could see winter weather in the coming days, particularly the central and eastern parts of the state. These future outlooks follow Tuesday’s winter storm, which brought below-zero temperatures and to the Midwest.
North Platte’s NWS station currently has similar predictions for very cold temperatures and light snow in northwestern and north central Nebraska. It also issued a flood advisory on Thursday morning due to an ice jam in the North Platte River.
Updates on winter weather can be found at the Hasting’s NWS website. Winter weather recommendations are also available on the national website.