textproduct: Jackson

KEY MESSAGES

- It will be breezy and mild ahead of a cold front today. Gusts up to 30 mph from the southwest this afternoon, mainly for locations west of I-75 and near the Bluegrass Region.

- Look for a band of scattered to numerous showers to cross the area with cold frontal passage tonight. A thunderstorm is possible in the east.

- Cooler and much drier air arrives for Sunday and Monday.

- Multiple weather systems could bring rain at times next week starting late Monday night.

UPDATE

Issued at 650 AM EST SAT NOV 15 2025

No significant changes were made to the forecast with mainly just the inclusion of the latest obs and trends for the T/Td grids. Did also beef up the sky cover this morning per satellite imagery. These minor adjustments have been sent to the NDFD and web servers along with a freshening of the zones.

LONG TERM

(Sunday night through Friday) Issued at 500 AM EST SAT NOV 15 2025

The main change to the extended forecast this morning was to add in more terrain distinction to nighttime temperatures for a couple of the nights later in the upcoming week. Also, spent some extra effort timing the clouds and hourly PoPs or the next system arriving on Tuesday morning allowing for non-diurnal warming and moistening towards dawn - further limiting the wintry mix potential as the next bout of pcpn moves into this part of the state from the west.

The previous long term discussion follows:

The long term forecast period continues to look active across Eastern Kentucky, with multiple boundary passages and repeated chances for widespread rainfall. Confidence in sensible weather specifics remains higher for the earlier portions of the period than it is towards the middle/end of next week. There remains a great deal of model spread for Tuesday and beyond, especially when it comes to the amplitude of the parent synoptic features responsible for the aforementioned active weather. The latest runs of the currently-available deterministic forecast guidance have, however, come closer to a consensus regarding the timing of these mid/upper level synoptics. This timing trend yields increasing confidence that all of the precipitation that falls next week will come in the form of rain. Thunder chances remain uncertain, especially given the lingering 10 to 15 degrees difference between the 25th and 75th quartiles of MaxT/MinT NBM guidance for Tuesday and beyond. If the trend towards a consensus continues, expect forecast confidence to improve in the coming days. For now though, the baseline NBM data was maintained for the majority of the long term forecast grids.

The period opens on Sunday morning within a post-frontal cold air advection regime. A few light rain showers could linger in Southeastern Kentucky before noon, especially in the higher terrain along the Virginia state line, where northwesterly low-level flow could yield marginal orographic lift. By Sunday afternoon, the persistent advection of a cooler and drier airmass throughout the atmospheric column will lead to clearing skies. Despite the sunnier conditions, high temperatures are forecast to be 10 to 15 degrees cooler on Sunday (mid 50s to near 60) than they were on Saturday. Gusty winds in the 20-25mph range will keep apparent temperatures in the 50s for much of the daytime hours on Sunday. After the sun sets, conditions appear favorable for efficient radiational cooling, especially in sheltered and shaded valley locales. Ridgetops should remain above the freezing mark, but the typical cold spots can expect to wake up to low temperatures near/just below 30 degrees.

On Monday, ridging looks to build into the forecast area, albeit briefly. A post-frontal surface high will quickly pass through the region and gradually shift lighter surface winds to a more easterly orientation by Monday night. Aloft, both the broad troughing over the NE CONUS and the midlevel ridging over the Mississippi River Valley will propagate eastward. The former will facilitate one more day of dry/cool air advection into the column, and the daytime hours on Monday look seasonably cool and dry. Expect highs in the 50s under mostly sunny skies. By Monday night, the flow aloft becomes more westerly, setting up a regime of quasi-zonal flow with multiple shortwave disturbances on deck upstream.

The first of these shortwave disturbances is forecast to arrive on Tuesday morning. At the surface, it will be preceded by a warm front moving into the Commonwealth late on Monday night. The approach of this boundary is forecast to yield increasing cloud cover and a non- diurnal temperature curve on Monday night into Tuesday morning. Monday night's lows are likely to occur around midnight, and will likely be colder in northeastern portions of the forecast area. Clouds will reach this area last, allowing for relatively-greater amounts of radiational cooling after sunset in shaded valleys and hollows. However, the likelihood of sub-freezing temperatures in these locales has decreased in accordance with the trend towards quicker cloud cover. Widespread, regular rain chances spread over the forecast area on Tuesday morning as the impulse approaches aloft. Mostly cloudy skies will keep instability at bay and limit the amount of diurnal warming. Some guidance shows a narrow tongue of weak instability closer to the Tennessee state line on Tuesday afternoon, but thunder was left out of the grids in this forecast issuance, as the currently available model soundings generally look unsupportive.

The boundary is then expected to stall out in the vicinity of the forecast area as it loses its dynamic support aloft. Models disagree on just how far north that boundary will get, leading to significant model spread. Skies will likely remain cloudy on Wednesday, but midlevel height rises point towards slightly warmer temperatures and lesser rain chances. Quasi-zonal flow continues into Thursday, keeping the sensible weather forecast relatively stagnant. A second, more subtle shortwave impulse moving through the flow on Thursday afternoon could nudge the boundary back to the north as a warm front and bolster rain chances, but the bigger story in this time frame will be the much deeper troughing emerging on the leeward side of the Rocky Mountains. As that system propagates east and becomes negatively tilted over the Plains on Friday, a regime of deeper southwesterly flow is forecast to set up into Ohio River Valley. Instability remains uncertain, as does the amplitude of that trough once it reaches the Midwest on Friday evening. However, pattern recognition suggests that this late-week system will need to be watched closely for deeper moisture return, and rain chances remain in the forecast through the end of the period as a result.

AVIATION

(For the 12Z TAFS through 12Z Sunday morning) ISSUED AT 720 AM EST SAT NOV 15 2025

VFR conditions are noted across all TAF sites with the 12Z issuance. As an upper-level wave passes through the area, clouds will hold in before clearing for a time into the afternoon. Once the front arrives this evening and overnight, CIGS will fall toward upper-end MVFR after 06Z/Sunday along with rain showers around and a shot at a thunderstorm for the far east. Also, increasing southwesterly winds sustained around 10 to 15 knots with gusts upwards of 25 knots will set in after 15Z and continue through the afternoon for all terminals. Post frontal, later tonight, the winds will switch more northwesterly at 5 to 10 kts.

JKL WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.