textproduct: Jackson

KEY MESSAGES

- Very warm weather expected mid-week, with afternoon highs returning to around 90F today and Thursday.

- Mainly dry conditions continue through Thursday, with only a low afternoon storm chance (30% or lower) in southwestern counties.

- Shower and storm chances increase this weekend and persist through early next week, with temperatures returning to near normal values in the 80s.

UPDATE

Issued at 945 AM EDT WED JUL 15 2026

The forecast for a hot and mostly sunny summer day across Eastern Kentucky remains on track this morning. This morning's satellite imagery reveals river valley fog quickly burning off within the last hour as solar insolation and diurnal mixing take root. Temperatures have accordingly warmed into the 70s at most of the area's observation sites, with some of our western mesonet sites already flirting with the 80 degree mark. Thus, widespread afternoon highs in the low 90s appear reasonable. Still expect a diurnal cumulus field to develop by midday, with the most extensive coverage in the Cumberland River basin. Relatively more filtered heating could cause highs to stay in the upper 80s in these southern and southwestern locales, but pop-up showers appear less likely today given the proximity of elongated synoptic ridging aloft. Thus, the primary sensible weather impacts across our CWA today will be peak heat indices in the mid to upper 90s.

LONG TERM

(Thursday night through Tuesday) Issued at 343 AM EDT WED JUL 15 2026

Overall the various models and ensembles are coming into reasonable agreement for the long term period. We will begin the period stuck in between somewhat zonal flow in the Great Lakes and ridging building in from Bermuda. Despite some ridging from the southeast expect more susceptibility to shortwaves from the quasi- zonal flow in the northern portions of the Ohio Valley. This will lead to to increasing chances of showers and thunderstorms mainly tied to diurnal heating. Moisture will surge north and east toward the Ohio Valley through the end of the week into the weekend with PWAT values climbing toward the 1.5 to 2 inch range. This will be running in the 90th+ percentile for this time of year based on the mean of the major ensemble systems. Given this surge in PWATs and potential for multiple rounds of convection, WPC has put the area into the marginal risk for excessive rainfall for Friday and Saturday.

There will be a shift in the pattern as we go into early next week with even a lull in rain chances on Monday. Then a more well defined cold front starts to push toward the Ohio Valley by Tuesday and this will bring another round of showers and thunderstorms to the region. There is even some guidance that shows this cold front could arrive in parts of southeast Kentucky Tuesday afternoon, with a decent surge of MUCAPE and some weaker but notable shear that could help to initiate some stronger convection. There is also some weaker signals showing up in the machine leaning and AI convective products. However, given the period would think predictability is a bit too low to start messaging this too much at this point in the forecast process. This cold front will usher in a drier and cooler airmass by midweek, with highs in the lower 80s and noticeably dryer air in place as dewpoints dip into the low to mid 60s.

AVIATION

(For the 12Z TAFS through 12Z Thursday morning) ISSUED AT 720 AM EDT WED JUL 15 2026

A mixture of VFR and worse conditions are noted at the TAF sites as the 12Z issuance time. The fog should lift by 13Z at the TAF sites and by 14Z across the remaining valleys. Then expect more diurnally driven cumulus to develop in the late morning and early afternoon, particularly over southern terminals. Based on the forecast sounding data these will remain above the MVFR levels at around 4 kft. The winds will remain variable and generally below 5 knots through the TAF period.

JKL WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.