textproduct: Jackson

KEY MESSAGES

- Temperatures will inch higher through midweek, with humidity also climbing a bit into Wednesday and Thursday.

- A cold front moving into the area late in the week will give us our next expectation of showers and thunderstorms for Thursday or Thursday night.

- Above normal heat and humidity look to continue through early next week.

UPDATE

Issued at 843 PM EDT TUE SEP 8 2026

Lingering isolated towering cumulus and shower activity has dissipated with the loss of daytime heating, with just passing high clouds remaining. The mid-evening update updates hourly temperatures and dew points using the latest hourly observation as the initialization to the forecast.

LONG TERM

(Thursday through Tuesday) Issued at 510 PM EDT TUE SEP 8 2026

The models are in generally good agreement for the majority of the extended portion of the forecast. Ridging starts out over the southeastern CONUS as well as the Desert Southwest, while faster and progressive flow dominates across the northern half of the CONUS. A notable short wave trough will be aligned from the Upper Midwest through the middle Mississippi Valley. This feature will cruise through the Ohio Valley and eventually New England by Friday. Troughing will be maintained across the Mississippi Valley Friday into Saturday, as additional short wave energy moves along the north central CONUS. Meanwhile, a deeper upper level low will propagate onshore over the Pacific Northwest. As this feature swings east, more prominent ridging will take hold downstream across the southeastern CONUS late this weekend and into early next week.

Sensible weather will feature an active start across eastern Kentucky for Thursday. A cold front will approach from the northwest, with more widespread convection moving in from northwest to southeast during the day. The highest probabilities will occur north KY-80, with perhaps a slightly slower trend seen in the latest model guidance. PWATs will peak in the 1.8 to 1.9 inch range, along with the surface boundary aligning more parallel with the mid and upper level flow. As such, some locally heavy rainers remain a possibility. Highs on Thursday will be in the mid to upper 80s. Showers and thunderstorms will continue to threaten through Thursday evening, although as instability wanes and the overall forcing diminish, convective coverage should gradually lessen overnight. Lows Thursday night will range from the mid 60s north of I-64, to the upper 60s bordering Tennessee. These lows wound up being just a shade higher than the blended guidance, given the tendency of the cold front to hang up as it moves across our region.

This boundary will linger across our southern locales on Friday, with a resurgence of good chance to likely PoPs seen generally along and southeast of KY-80. Highs will retreat closer to normal temporarily, mainly in the low to mid 80s. We will still be under the influence of troughing aloft on Saturday, although some subtle 500 mb height rises may actually occur. Still, enough low level moisture will linger to allow for additional diurnally-driven convection. Similar to Friday, higher PoPs will be favored across our southeast. From Sunday through Tuesday, ridging will be building in aloft, keeping convective coverage more limited. Unfortunately, this will also mean a continuation of above normal heat and humidity across eastern Kentucky, with highs averaging in the 85 to 90 degree range each day, and dew points remaining above 70 degrees at times.

AVIATION

(For the 00Z TAFS through 00Z Wednesday evening) ISSUED AT 723 PM EDT TUE SEP 8 2026

VFR conditions are expected through the TAF period with primarily high clouds. In the near term, patchy low-VFR cumulus and isolated showers or sprinkles will continue to diminish with the loss of daytime heating through 01z. Otherwise, light and variable surface winds are expected through the overnight, but southwest winds just above the surface of 15 to 25 kts will develop with the onset of darkness this evening. Some patchy river valley fog may develop late tonight, but at present is not expected to cause impacts to the TAF locations. These stronger southwesterly winds just above the surface will mix out quickly after ~13z Wednesday, and southwest winds may gust up to 15 to 20 kts through the afternoon at IOB, SYM, LOZ, and SME.

Some CAMS indicate some cumulus and isolated shower activity moving into western TAF sites after 06z tonight, and this is something we will monitor but was too low confidence to include in any TAFs at this time. There is also very low confidence in a shower or thunderstorm impacting IOB and/or SYM after 21z, so any mention was not included with this TAF package.

JKL WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.