textproduct: Jackson

KEY MESSAGES

- High pressure slowly builds into the region over the next several days, allowing drier weather to return.

- The warming trend continues today, with high temperatures gradually climbing each day through the upcoming workweek.

- Expect widespread valley lows near/below freezing through Thursday night/Friday morning.

LONG TERM

(Monday night through Saturday) Issued at 430 AM EST SUN NOV 15 2026

A pronounced ridging pattern looks to dominate the long term forecast period, leading to seasonably tranquil sensible weather conditions across all of Eastern Kentucky through at least next Saturday. Forecast confidence is high in this time frame, as members of the guidance suite collectively resolve the amplification, eastward propagation, and then suppression of this feature along similar timelines. At the beginning of the period, the ridge axis will be positioned immediately upstream of the forecast area. The related synoptic-scale subsidence will reinforce the attendant surface high pressure system and keep it in the proximity of the JKL CWA for most of the period. Such a setup yields mostly clear skies and efficient diurnal heating/cooling/mixing processes through midweek, when the ridge should reach its peak intensity. Mean LREF 500mb geopotential height values climb towards the 98th percentile of model climatology over the Ohio River Valley on Wednesday afternoon, but a shortwave trough passing through the Upper Midwest looks to suppress/flatten the ridge on Thursday/Friday. The ridge axis accordingly shifts to the east-southeast of the CWA through Saturday, which, in turn, will allow the flow throughout the column to adopt more southerly and westerly directional components. The resultant warm air advection should yield a noticeable week-end warming trend, but the ridge's continued proximity will keep the airmass dry. So, expect fair skies and dry conditions to persist through the end of the forecast period.

Given all of the above, the only notable deviations from the baseline NBM guidance used to populate the long term forecast grids remain the addition of overnight ridge-valley temperature splits. Light pressure gradient winds and mostly clear skies should easily allow the valleys to decouple after sunset each night. As the colder air pools into these lower elevation locales on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights, temperatures should easily drop down below the freezing mark. The conventionally-coldest sheltered and shaded hollows could drop down into the 20s each night, but MOS guidance suggests that the ridgetops could remain above freezing. The coldest temperatures are forecast for Monday night/Tuesday morning, when the surface high will be closest to the CWA. NBM ensemble probabilities for MinTs less than or equal to 25 degrees peak in the 40-60% range in this time frame, but these probabilities decrease to less than 10% area-wide on Thursday morning. As the ridging collectively shifts east and the aforementioned warming trend comes to fruition, it will intrinsically become harder for overnight lows to cool off as much. High temperatures should moderate back into the 60s area- wide on Wednesday, then continue climbing towards the low 70s through Saturday. Expect dewpoints to remain in the 30s though, with the exact value of mixed afternoon dews playing a role in how cold it gets at night. The coldest valleys could still reach frost/freeze temperatures at night, so it might be a good idea to keep window scrapers ready if you have to park outside at night. Other than this frost potential though, very little weather-related societal impacts are anticipated across Eastern Kentucky between Tuesday and Saturday.

AVIATION

(For the 06Z TAFS through 06Z Sunday night) ISSUED AT 1250 AM EST SUN NOV 15 2026

Most sites were experiencing a low VFR stratus deck around 4 kft at the 06Z TAF issuance time. The stratus is expected to linger through the TAF period with breaks most probable at times for LOZ and SME. Further north and east the stratus will tend to be lower, more contiguous, and could briefly dip to MVFR at JKL and SJS (possibly as well at SYM) early this morning. VFR ceilings then return area-wide during the day. Winds will remain largely out of the northwest below 10 knots.

JKL WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.