Michiana Counties (MI/IN) — Regional Forecast Discussions
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766 FXUS63 KIWX 141014 AFDIWX Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Northern Indiana 614 AM EDT Wed Oct 14 2026 .KEY MESSAGES... - A cold front will continue sliding southeastward today with some showers possible as it does so. - A lull in greater rain chances is expected later this afternoon into tonight, but another round of showers and storms is expected Thursday and Thursday night. - There is a Marginal Risk of severe storms (mainly wind) along and south of US Route 24 for Thursday evening. Confidence in severe weather is low. - Turning much cooler and windy for Friday with some lake effect rain showers. && .DISCUSSION... Issued at 326 AM EDT Wed Oct 14 2026 With a ridge across SE TX and surface high pressure in the SE CONUS, waves are forecast to ride atop the ridge and then work to break down the ridge during this mid to late week period. As such, the shortwave that helped to force the overnight showers and storms moves quickly eastward toward the northeast, which allows a cold front to slide southeastward into the Ohio River Valley pushing showers southeastward out of the area early this morning. The subsidence behind this wave is expected to suppress any substantial development behind it for the rest of the day, today. However, some isolated to scattered light rain cannot be ruled out, especially south of US-24. Meanwhile, an area of low pressure rides northward along the stalled front stretched down into the southern Plains and allows the portion of the front stalled to our southwest to ride northeastward as a warm front as early as late tonight into early Thursday. So, while dew points fall below 60F across the whole area tonight, they are expected to moisten back above 60F again Thursday afternoon and night. It is interesting to see a stronger wave on the ECMWF bring an inch of rain accums over 6hrs right up to our doorstep Thursday morning and this appears to be from some stronger large scale ascent. This large scale ascent continues through the area during the afternoon. This is different on the GFS as it splits the stronger area of large scale ascent into two separate smaller areas to the north and south and then the large scale ascent during the afternoon is more diffuse or non- existent. This provides some uncertainty on our marginal chances for severe weather Thursday afternoon/evening, especially on its location. Instability appears to get into areas south of US-24 on both the ECMWF and the NAM (500 J/kg or less), but not the GFS. Instability is elevated and the column looks very moist so this would likely be a heavy rain scenario with some potential for gusty to damaging wind if it is able to get through the inversion. Models handle the forcing during this period differently so placement of rain bulls-eyes and intensity of them are all over the place across the area. The GFS has nearly rain during the 00-06z timeframe Thursday night, whereas the ECMWF has a bulls-eye over 0.5" nearby. Now, at the same time as an upper low washes out as it moves northeastward towards the area Thursday, a deep mid level trough dives southward and pushes the remnant energy northeastward quickly and swings through later Friday through Friday night. This is followed by a strong 1040 mb surface high diving into the southeastern US. So we quickly have rain (with minimal convective component by this point) overtaken by lake enhanced rain during the day Friday. NAM Bufkit soundings indicate delta-Ts as much as 20 to 30F degrees using lake temps around 62 degrees. Lake induced inversions rise up to 700 mb on these forecast soundings, which fairly incredible. Deeper moisture profiles arrive Thursday night and continue into early Friday morning before drier surface air begins to work in and cut off better rain formation. Given the strength of the surface high, much cooler air is able to enter the area and low temps Friday night and Saturday night will fall into the 30s. This turns the mind to frost possibilities, but Friday night looks like there will still be a bit of gradient around and probably the wind is still slackening at this point. Plus, we'll still have lake clouds dissipating. A slightly better chance for frost occurs Saturday night, but we'll have to see if winds are able to slacken enough at that point. From Saturday night, flow across the CONUS appears to slacken and there is a period where nearly zonal flow is established until early the following weak as another deep trough enters the western CONUS. Because return flow becomes reestablished, expect a warming trend with a return to seasonable highs at least by Sunday, if not by Monday. && .AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z THURSDAY/... Issued at 600 AM EDT Wed Oct 14 2026 Showers and storms have cleared both locations. Some pockets of stratus and fog have developed at KSBN and could materialize at KFWA. Beyond the first few hours confidence on MVFR cigs is somewhat low as upstream obs not showing a whole lot of impacts. Will keep with higher end MVFR for the time being. && .IWX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... IN...None. OH...None. MI...None. MARINE...None. && $$ DISCUSSION...Roller AVIATION...Fisher