textproduct: Jackson

KEY MESSAGES

- Showers and thunderstorm chances will persist through the weekend and into the middle of the new work week. The greatest coverage is expected Tuesday through Friday. - Isolated heavy to excessive rainfall may occur where storms are most persistent.

UPDATE

Issued at 756 PM EDT SAT AUG 8 2026

Forecast is still in good shape so far this evening. Isolated showers and thunderstorms are ongoing in the southern CWA, but as expected, are not very organized and are as quick to pulse down as they are to pulse up. One storm, however, apparently didn't get the memo and decided to over-perform (leading to an SPS and flood advisory), but thankfully is finally deciding to give up the fight. These storms have overall lined up with the forecasted pops through this evening, and if this continues, coverage should dissipate as we head later into the evening hours - but will continue to monitor in case any updates need to be made. Loaded in the latest observations to make sure the near term grids were on track with the current conditions, but this only resulted in minor changes as well. All updates have been published and sent to NDFD/web. The forecast package and HWO are all still well represented, so no changes will be made to those at this time - though expect that as storms dissipate for the night will need to remove the evening storm wording from the HWO at some point later this evening.

LONG TERM

(Monday through Saturday) Issued at 552 PM EDT Sat Aug 8 2026

The long term forecast period starts out on a seasonably hot note in Eastern Kentucky, with synoptic conditions favoring efficient diurnal warming. When the period opens on Monday morning, the area will be positioned between a building ridge over the Southern Plains and the subtropical ridge over the southeastern states. Models collectively resolve midlevel height rises over the commonwealth on Monday as the influence of the former feature grows. Both diabatic and adiabatic warming processes will allow temperatures to climb towards the upper 80s/lower 90s on Monday. These seasonably hot highs will combine with the antecedent moisture (dewpoints in the 70s) to yield widespread heat indices in the 90s. A few triple digit readings cannot be ruled out, but heat headline products are not anticipated.

This partially due to increased rain chances on Monday in southern portions of the forecast area, which may cause localized pockets of rain-cooled air and cause highs to under-perform. As the col previously noted between the two synoptic ridges closes up on Monday, it will push a subtle upper level disturbance towards the Tennessee River Valley. This feature's alignment with peak diurnal heating has introduced isolated to scattered coverage PoPs (15-35%) across the counties along the TN and VA state lines. Due to the previously-discussed and increasing influence of the dominant ridging features, this activity should not pose a risk for any significant impacts. Rather, a few run-of-the-mill late summertime showers and thunderstorms cannot be ruled out on Monday afternoon/evening.

The flow aloft is progged to turn more northwesterly overnight into Tuesday morning, which will allow a series of shortwave impulses to navigate around the ridge and into the forecast area. Pattern recognition suggests that the convection associated with these disturbances could take the form of MCSes moving through the Midwest and the Greater Ohio River Valley. The first of those thunderstorm complexes could affect far northern portions of the forecast area late Monday night into Tuesday morning, and SPC has accordingly delineated a Marginal (Level 1/5) Severe Weather Outlook in Fleming and Rowan Counties for the period ending at 8AM Tuesday. Damaging wind gusts would be the primary hazard type in this type of setup, but it is uncertain how strong each complex will be by the time it arrives in the JKL CWA. The first one will be arriving during the diurnal instability minima, and it will probably be in a weakening state as a result. It remains difficult to pinpoint the timing details surrounding each shortwave, and it is equally difficult to determine where any residual outflow boundaries and/or instability gradients might set up in the wake of each storm complex. Forecast uncertainty accordingly compounds as the week progresses.

With that being said, interests are encouraged to remain weather aware on Tuesday and Wednesday. The available medium-range machine learning models and analog-based convective guidance still paint risks for severe weather across portions of Eastern Kentucky on these two days. Once again, damaging wind gusts would be the favored hazard type in such a setup, but mesoscale effects could cause the favored risk areas to shift and other convective hazards cannot entirely be ruled out. Any severe weather risk will be accompanied by a threat for excessive rainfall, and WPC has already delineated a Slight (Level 2/4) Excessive Rainfall Outlooks for portions of the commonwealth on both Tuesday and Wednesday. Flash flooding could develop if storms engage in training and/or backbuilding behaviors. Given the compounding nature of the forecast uncertainty surrounding this setup, it is too early to advertise specific rainfall totals. Instead, we will need to monitor the output of higher-resolution forecast models for parameter spacing that favors those behaviors. The first MCS enters the temporal range of the long-range CAMs tonight, and as more data becomes available in the coming days, forecast confidence should improve.

All of this activity will culminate in the approach of a cold front towards the end of the period. In general, increased late week cloud cover should work to suppress the early week heat as time passes. Temperatures are forecast to modulate back towards more climatologically-appropriate values by Thursday. Expect highs to return to the mid/low 80s on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and lows to fall somewhere between the mid 60s and near 70. Precipitation chances are more uncertain, as the extended forecast guidance suite is split on how progressive that boundary will be. If it is slower and/or becomes diffuse over the CWA, rain chances will persist into the weekend. If guidance trends towards a more progressive pattern aloft, the broad-brushed PoPs currently in the grids for Saturday could trend downwards. The 12z Euro currently portrays the former solution, whereas the 12z GFS resolves the latter, with a drier continental airmass advecting into the area via more northerly flow. Their ensemble counterparts are met with increasing model spread, and it will be interesting to see which camp becomes more favored as the uncertainty surrounding the mid-week MCSes subsides.

AVIATION

(For the 00Z TAFS through 00Z Sunday evening) ISSUED AT 804 PM EDT SAT AUG 8 2026

Ongoing isolated showers and thunderstorms near the southern TAF points have led to the inclusion of VCTS for the next couple of hours, but the overall trend is that they will continue to dissipate as we head further into the evening hours. Additional isolated convection is possible tonight over northern Kentucky as a weak cold front sags to near the Ohio River, but confidence in coverage of the convection remains too low to mention in the northern TAF sites on this forecast cycle. Otherwise, VFR conditions will prevail into the overnight hours before valley fog and/or low stratus develop late in the night, heralding the return of more widespread MVFR to IFR conditions into Sunday morning. Once the fog clears out Sunday, another chance of showers and thunderstorms presents itself during the afternoon hours - though as of now should again mainly be contained to the far southeast portion of the state. Put in a mention of PROB30 at KLOZ TAF as a result, though wouldn't be surprised if chances eventually expanded into KSME as well. Winds will generally be southwesterly at less than 10 kts through the period; however, locally strong and gusty winds cannot be ruled out near any thunderstorms.

JKL WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.