textproduct: Jackson

KEY MESSAGES

- Temperatures remain mild through Thursday, while showers are possible at times into Friday.

- A few thunderstorms capable of locally heavy rain and strong wind gusts are possible this evening.

- Much cooler weather arrives for the weekend - likely the coldest we have experienced so far this autumn. This poses a risk for frost on Saturday night into Sunday morning.

LONG TERM

(Friday through Wednesday) Issued at 616 PM EDT Wed Oct 14 2026

When the long term forecast period opens on Friday morning, Eastern Kentucky will be on the precipice of a significant change in airmass. A robust, positively-tilted trough stretching from the Central Plains to the Upper Midwest will dig deeper into the Ohio and Tennessee River Valleys as the day progresses. At the surface, this translates to a deepening cyclone over the eastern Great Lakes and a sharp cold front trailing behind it. That cold front will be the focal point of Friday's forecast, with sensible weather details such as high temperatures and wind direction dependent upon a given place's position relative to the boundary.

The entire CWA will experience mild AM lows in the upper 60s on Friday morning, when forecast guidance collectively resolves the boundary off to the west in the Bluegrass. Pre-frontal surface winds will be out of the southwest. So will the flow aloft, and this vertical continuity suggests that there will be warm air advection ongoing on Friday in places out ahead of the front. FROPA has trended a little bit later in the day, and Friday's forecast highs have accordingly risen a few degrees towards the upper 70s in our easternmost counties. In counties further to the north and west, there will be a shorter window of time where this WAA overlaps with the diurnal warming cycle. So, high temperatures in places like the Bluegrass will only be a few degrees warmer than those lows (in the upper 60s/lower 70s). Those highs will also likely occur much earlier in the day than usual, as once FROPA occurs, diurnal heating will become suppressed by cloud cover and a sharp wind shift.

Surface winds should shift towards a westerly and then northwesterly orientation as FROPA occurs from west to east on Friday. Frontal and orographic lift will combine to yield additional light rain shower chances along and behind the boundary, but the bigger story with this boundary will be the robust cold air advection that takes place behind it. Given the tightening pressure gradient of the parent synoptic system, Friday afternoon's post-frontal winds will be quite breezy. The REFS high-resolution ensemble resolves a 50-80% chance of wind gusts in excess of 25 mph across most of the JKL CWA in this time frame. When this criteria is lowered to >20 mph, the probabilities jump to near 100%. If it is raised above 30 mph, the odds dwindle off significantly. While wind advisory criteria is unlikely to be met, the magnitude of these winds reinforces the notion that there will be an efficient cold air advection regime in the wake of Friday afternoon's frontal passage. Expect a significant drop in temperatures to occur on Friday evening, with temperatures in the 50s area-wide by sunset. Once the sun goes down and solar insolation goes away, the temperature plummet will continue. The entire CWA should wake up to temperatures in the 40s on Saturday morning, but lingering cloud cover and some upsloped rain showers should prevent it from getting much colder than that.

The same cannot be said for Saturday night/Sunday morning, which looks to be the coldest night of the autumn season thus far. As a post-frontal surface high pressure system builds into the CWA on Saturday morning, winds will shift to a more northerly orientation. This will bring an end to any orographically-enhanced post-frontal rain chances, and a much cooler/drier continental airmass will move into the region in the wake of the precipitation. Highs will struggle to get much warmer than the 50s, and dewpoints will plummet into the 30s on Saturday afternoon. Diurnal mixing should work to erode any lingering cloud cover by sunset, which should set the stage for efficient radiational cooling overnight. NBM ensemble data resolves a 60-90% chance of temperatures dropping below 36 degrees across most of the JKL CWA overnight. The most sheltered and shaded valleys could make a run at the 32 degree mark, but the probability of occurrence drops to below 40% at this threshold. As a reminder, the criteria for a Frost Advisory is defined as minimum shelter forecast temperatures between 33 and 36 degrees Fahrenheit during the growing season, on nights with good radiational cooling conditions. Saturday night is poised to meet this criteria, so agricultural interests and recreational gardeners are encouraged to monitor for potential product issuances as the time approaches. Temperatures will be slow to make a full recovery back above the 70 degree mark next week, although a gradual warm-up is expected. The postfrontal high should shift east on Sunday as the mid/upper level trough axis aloft swings through New England. Antecedent forecast thinking is that a building ridge will allow temperatures to moderate back into the 60s under fair skies by early next week. However, some of the more recent pieces of guidance (namely members of the Euro ensemble) are developing a cut-off low over the Carolinas in this time frame. That feature could block the eastward propagation of that ridging, and it would cause temperatures to stay on the lower side of the forecast envelope early next week. Nevertheless, fog should become favored over frost in the valleys at night as temperatures warm. This is typical for autumn in Eastern Kentucky, and next week's forecast features temperatures much closer to normal than what we are experiencing at the present moment.

AVIATION

(For the 18Z TAFS through 18Z Thursday afternoon) ISSUED AT 200 PM EDT WED OCT 14 2026

Prevailing VFR was occurring at issuance time and is expected to continue to begin the period. Some low clouds and cumulus had developed in advance of a cold front, with additional cloud cover upstream in association with convection with an approaching shortwave trough and cold front. Showers and scattered thunderstorms with some brief reductions to MVFR or perhaps briefly lower are anticipated to develop during the first 6 hours of the period and affect locations mainly north of a KSJS to KJKL to KLOZ to KSME line. As the boundary gradually sags into eastern KY tonight, widespread MVFR or lower should develop by the 06Z to 12Z timeframe generally for areas near and north of a KSME to KLOZ to KJKL to KSJS. Showers will remain possible with the boundary stalled over the area during the last 6 hours of the period and reductions to MVFR and IFR are anticipated for KSJS to KJKL and north and mainly VFR to the south.

JKL WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.