textproduct: Jackson

KEY MESSAGES

- A marginal to slight risk for severe storms persists this evening across Kentucky, with the greatest concern being damaging wind gusts along the I-64 corridor.

- A warming trend emerges tomorrow, with temperatures forecast to climb to much above normal readings on Monday.

LONG TERM

(Monday through Saturday) Issued at 515 PM EDT SAT MAY 16 2026

An amplified ridging pattern yields much warmer than normal temperatures across Eastern Kentucky for the start of the next work week, but thankfully, that warmth will not persist for long. As the week progresses, shortwave impulses will rotate around the base of a broad, positively-tilted trough draped from the Southern Plains to the Upper Midwest. The passage of those disturbances will culminate in the suppression of the ridge, which places the Greater Ohio River Valley in a regime of quasi-zonal flow for the second half of the work week.

At the surface, this pattern translates to hot and mostly dry conditions on Monday before a slow-moving cold front approaches the forecast area around midweek. Given the subsidence and geopotential height rises observed across the area in Monday's forecast guidance, it is progged to be the warmest day of the period. Efficient diurnal mixing should allow highs to climb into the lower half of the 90s, especially in the deeper valleys of Eastern KY (like the Big Sandy River Basin). Blended NBM guidance continues to run on the higher side of the ensemble envelope, so in coordination with neighboring WFOs, Monday's highs were blended towards lower percentiles. Dewpoints will lag behind in upper 50s and lower 60s, so heat indices should not be much different than the ambient temperature. Sensitive populations may experience heat-related impacts with prolonged exposure on Monday, but any instances will be isolated. While Monday's forecast highs will challenge records, they will not approach heat headline criteria. This early season does coincidentally coincide with the 2026 interagency Heat Safety Week campaign, and interested parties are encouraged to tune in to official NWS social media platforms for infographics related to heat headline criteria, heat illness/impacts, and heat risk mitigation.

Low level flow becomes breezier and adopts a more southwesterly orientation on Tuesday. This should correspond with increasing moisture return and thus relatively greater sky cover and slightly cooler temperatures in the upper 80s on Tuesday afternoon. With more widespread dewpoints in the 60s, diurnally-driven isolated to scattered showers and thunderstorms enter the forecast. The previously-mentioned boundary lags off to the NW of the CWA on Tuesday, meaning that any convection will lack the frontal forcing and dynamic support aloft to be on the stronger side. However, that forcing looks to arrive by Wednesday and produce more widespread shower and storms. The convective parameter spacing for Wednesday's activity is conditional on what happens upstream the previous day, so it is difficult to pinpoint those specifics at the current temporal range. However, the stalling nature of the boundary could cause multiple rounds of convectively-bolstered rainfall to track across the region. Most of this rain should prove highly beneficial to the ongoing drought, and it will also work to lower temperatures back towards seasonal averages through the end of the period.

However, if it stalls out for too long over the forecast area amidst the quasi-zonal flow aloft, the repetitive rainfall will get old. There remains some model uncertainty on where this stall occurs and how long it persists for. WPC has accordingly outlined a broad- brushed Marginal Excessive Rainfall Outlook for the region on Wednesday. Widespread, significant flash flooding is not the most likely forecast solution, but isolated instances cannot be entirely ruled out if stronger storms track over the same place multiple times in a row. Forecast confidence will increase once this boundary's approach enters the temporal range of the higher- resolution, convective-allowing forecast model suite. For now, confidence is highest in the thermal sensible weather effects from this boundary. Expect highs to drop into the 70s to close out the work week, with overnight lows returning to the 50s.

AVIATION

(For the 18Z TAFS through 18Z Sunday afternoon) ISSUED AT 410| PM EDT SAT MAY 16 2026

Scattered showers/thunderstorms were present at the start of the period, but were on the decline and on the way out to the east. This will leave us with a period of VFR conditions area wide late this afternoon. However, additional thunderstorms may develop, especially as we move into the evening. This is most likely over northern portions of the area, especially near/north of I-64, and could bring localized IFR or worse conditions. This activity is expected to diminish and exit to the north during the night. Should there be few enough clouds, valley fog would be a concern. This would be most likely in the southern portion of the forecast area and could result in localized VLIFR conditions. However, this is not currently forecast to affect TAF sites. VFR conditions are forecast to return area wide early Sunday morning and last into the afternoon.

JKL WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.