textproduct: Jackson

KEY MESSAGES

- Snow showers and flurries will end this morning, followed by clearing skies for this afternoon.

- Some light snow accumulations are possible Wednesday night into Thursday with a weak and progressive system brushing the area from the north and northeast.

- Though there is considerable uncertainty at this time, especially with regards to temperatures, we are monitoring a southern stream system which has some potential to bring a cold rain and perhaps some wintry precipitation to parts of the area Friday night into early Saturday. - Wintery temperatures will persist through the end of 2025 and into the beginning of 2026.

UPDATE

Issued at 922 AM EST TUE DEC 30 2025

Refreshed forecast with the latest weather observations, tweaking temperatures over the next few hours. Also adjusted the forecast to add a chance of flurries lingering for the next few hours. No impactful weather is expected, with no major changes to the forecast.

UPDATE Issued at 625 AM EST TUE DEC 30 2025

Increased the Sky grids for the morning hours given current satellite trends. Also raised hourly temperatures given extensive low clouds for the next several hours as opportunities for clearing allowing for temperatures to drop a few more degrees appear to be quite low. Otherwise, the forecast is on track. Light snow and flurries will rapidly diminish from northwest to southeast between 12z and 15z this morning.

LONG TERM

(Wednesday night through Monday) Issued at 359 AM EST TUE DEC 30 2025

The extended is going to be a bit busy - though thankfully with no major impacts. Kentucky and much of the Ohio Valley will be in a strong troughing pattern through much of the extended, with deep NW flow. This flow will weaken a bit by the weekend, but will remain in place. Multiple shortwaves and surface low pressure systems will track along this flow, impacting the Ohio Valley. In fact, from here on out we will refer to them in order...

System #1 - Starting Wednesday night as a low pressure system forms across the eastern Ohio Valley, moving into New England by Thursday morning. We will be on the southern edge of this system. Precipitation will mainly affect the northeast CWA as it moves eastward Wednesday night, along with a surface cold front, exiting Thursday morning. The most notable feature of this system will be the NW flow on the backside, which, along with strong NW flow aloft, will advect in cooler temperatures (hence the cold front). Temperatures by daybreak will be below freezing, which could cause any lingering precip in the northeast CWA to change over to snow. Right now there does look to be some light accumulations as a result in this location, but should be under an inch.

A small area of high pressure will move in for Thursday afternoon, and persist into Friday.

System #2 - Quite a bit uncertainly lies with this late Friday/Saturday system. Latest model runs show a surface low pressure system moving across the Lower Mississippi Valley Friday night in response to an upper level shortwave developing on the south side of the large scale troughing. There is good agreement that the system will continue to move eastward throughout the day Saturday. However, neither the GFS of NAM show the associated precip with this system moving far enough north to impact the JKL CWA. Meanwhile, the NBM is much farther north with the system, bringing chance pops to nearly all of the CWA late Friday through Friday night, before exiting Saturday morning. WPC is also analyzing a stationary front across southeast KY and TN Friday, which suggests precipitation could impact the state. Due to being on the northern fringe of this southerly system, we could see decent temperature gradients between the southern CWA, where NBM has precipitation/cloud cover/WAA, and the northern CWA (north of the frontal boundary). If precipitation is able to push far enough north, models are pointing at the potential for some light freezing rain across the northern fringe of the precipitation (also the northern fringe of our CWA). Again, don't have high confidence in this event, and still concerned that all of the precipitation is overdone/too far north. Will be interested to see if next couple of runs of the NBM become more in line with the more southerly global models, and even the CAMs as they start to catch the system at the end of their runs.

Another round of high pressure will move in for Saturday afternoon (or earlier depending on the track of the above-mentioned system), and will likely persist through the day Sunday. NBM is trying to bring some passing bkn/ovc clouds through the area during this time, though not exactly sure the reasoning. But otherwise it should be dry.

System #3 - Monday into Monday night. If the Friday night/Saturday system was uncertain, this one is not in any agreement whatsoever. The one thing models do agree on is a shortwave and surface low pressure system developing across the Upper Great Lakes - the ECMWF being much stronger than the GFS - on Monday morning. A swath of precipitation around this system will also shift ESE. The GFS, being much weaker, shows only a small area of precipitation across the Great Lakes region, while the stronger ECWMF expands the precipitation over a much larger swatch. Neither model brings the precipitation anywhere close to the Commonwealth. Meanwhile, again, the NBM is showing slight to chance pops making their way southward during this time period across a good portion of the CWA. Not sure if it's feeding off a different model, or if the models have shifted that much since their last run. But will be interested to see if this too will trend drier in the NBM. It is Day 7, so still a lot of time for changes.

Throughout all of this, despite strong NW flow, expect daytime temperatures to remain around or just above normal for the upcoming week. The warmest day will be Friday, as WAA is one certainty from the southerly system, raising temps into the mid 40s (north) to mid 50s (south). This will carry over into Friday night in the southern CWA and Saturday as well. Otherwise, most nights should see temperatures in the 20s and low 30s.

AVIATION

(For the 12Z TAFS through 12Z Wednesday morning) ISSUED AT 629 AM EST TUE DEC 30 2025

MVFR cloud deck producing -SN will erode between 15z and 18z, with VFR conditions expected thereafter. Look for winds generally from the west at 5 to 10 kts. After a period of clearing this afternoon, low clouds increase from the northwest after 03z tonight as a system brushes the area, though cigs are expected to remain VFR.

JKL WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.