textproduct: Wilmington

WHAT HAS CHANGED

Continued to trend higher with pops Friday into Saturday.

KEY MESSAGES

1) Widespread showers and scattered thunderstorms will spread across the region Friday and continue into Saturday, with the potential for locally heavy rain.

DISCUSSION

KEY MESSAGE 1) A series of mid level short waves will lift northeast across the region Friday into Saturday in persistent moist, southwest flow. This will result in the potential for locally heavy rainfall.

The initial wave will move across the Ohio Valley through the day on Friday, helping to lift a warm front up into our area later Friday afternoon into Friday night. Meanwhile, a 30-40 knot low level jet will spread northward into our area, providing sufficient lift over the front to produce widespread shower and thunderstorm activity Friday afternoon/night. While any instability will be mainly elevated, some weak surface based instability may make its way up toward the Ohio River late Friday afternoon/evening. With this being in the vicinity of the warm front, it will be tough to rule out a few rotating storms across our far south, with a low end potential for some damaging wind or even an isolated tornado. Otherwise, with PWs again pushing up toward 1.8 inches or so, locally heavy rainfall will be possible with stronger/training storms. With antecedent conditions more moist after the last few rounds of rain, flooding issues may become more of a concern as we head into Friday night.

The warm front will move off to our north through the day on Saturday with our area getting more into the warm sector. However, additional mid level short wave energy lifting northeast may allow for a secondary surface wave to develop along a weak cold front back to our west. With continued good southwest flow/moisture transport ahead of this, expect fairly widespread shower and embedded thunderstorm activity to linger into the day on Saturday. Various models are trying to pull some surface based instability up into our southeast through Saturday afternoon, but there is some uncertainty with this depending on clouds and pcpn coverage. If this does materialize, we could have at least a lower end severe threat for Saturday afternoon/evening. This would also lead to an increased potential for flooding as locally heavy rainfall would remain possible.

AVIATION /18Z THURSDAY THROUGH TUESDAY/

Drying will continue to work its way in from the northwest through the rest of this afternoon with lingering MVFR cigs across our south trending into VFR.

Moisture will spread back up from the south later tonight and into the day on Friday as an upper level disturbance lifts northeast into the Ohio Valley. As it does, MVFR cigs will redevelop late tonight into Friday morning. Showers will eventually overspread the TAF sites from south to north later Friday morning and into the afternoon, with some IFR cigs/MVFR vsbys developing.

OUTLOOK...MVFR to IFR ceilings and visibilities are likely into Saturday night with MVFR ceilings possibly lingering into Sunday.

ILN WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

OH...None. KY...None. IN...None.