textproduct: Jackson

KEY MESSAGES

- Cool and mainly dry weather will prevail through the weekend, with frost possible around dawn on Sunday.

- The next area-wide potential for showers and thunderstorms will be Monday through Wednesday.

LONG TERM

(Saturday through Thursday) Issued at 239 PM EDT THU APR 30 2026

The period begins Saturday with an upper trough extending from southeastern Canada through the Great Lakes and the Ohio/Tennessee Valley to the Lower Mississippi Valley, moving east to the Eastern Seaboard early Sunday morning and then out into the Atlantic thereafter. A surface low pressure will be along the Southeast US coastline ahead of the parent trough, with widespread precipitation from southern Virginia to the Florida/Alabama Gulf Coast, and this feature will also be moving out to sea. Models remain in general agreement that far southeastern Kentucky will be just beyond the northwestern/northern edge of the widespread precipitation with this feature, but there are a few AI ensemble members that suggest some low-end PoPs are warranted, so will keep the NBM low-end PoPs going for now.

Temperatures will be below normal through the weekend under a cold advection regime as surface high pressure builds in from the west under northwesterly flow aloft through Sunday. With clear skies and light winds Saturday night into Sunday morning, lows will drop well down into the 30s, with widespread frost a likelihood in the valleys.

By Sunday night, surface high pressure begins to slide off to the east, allowing for gradually increasing southwest to westerly surface flow and increasingly westerly flow aloft ahead of a digging trough over the north-central US. This digging trough will close off into an upper low over Ontario/Quebec early next week, with a surface front draped from the Lower Great Lakes and interior Northeast US extending southwest to the Ohio River Valley. Thus, PoPs are introduced to northern areas late Sunday night, with progressively increasing PoPs Monday into Tuesday across all of eastern Kentucky, persisting through Wednesday. Models differ from run-to-run with the details, but an increasingly unsettled pattern is expected for the first half of next week, with westerly flow aloft and southwesterly surface flow ushering a warmer and more humid air mass into eastern Kentucky.

AVIATION

(For the 18Z TAFS through 18Z Friday afternoon) ISSUED AT 142 PM EDT THU APR 30 2026

Surface high pressure is building into the region allowing for mostly clear skies and VFR conditions. A 5K cumulus deck is progged to develop through the afternoon but will dissipate toward the overnight. However, clouds will start to build back into from the northwest as a mostly dry cold front dives southeast toward the area. PROB30s were added to KSYM and KSJS for the precipitation potential but the rest of the sites will stay dry. Winds are forecast to be a little breezy from the north today but will shift to the southwest and dissipate overnight ahead of the front. Winds will start to pick up again ahead of the front but shift to the northwest behind the front toward the end of the period. Sustained winds of 5 to 10 knots and gusts to 15 knots will be possible this afternoon and again tomorrow with the front.

JKL WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

None.