textproduct: Louisville

KEY MESSAGES

* Mild and breezy with a period of light rain showers for some this morning into early afternoon. Record warm minimum temperatures for some locations.

* Chances to break a few temperature records continue through Thursday.

* Active weather pattern expected through mid-late week with showers and thunderstorms on later tonight and Thursday. Strong/severe storms are possible Thursday afternoon into late Thursday evening, but the threat remains conditional at this time.

* A return to colder weather looks likely for late weekend into early next week.

SHORT TERM /THROUGH TONIGHT/

Issued at 311 AM EST Wed Feb 18 2026

A mild and breezy early morning will continue as heavy cloud cover and gusty SW winds keep temperatures up. Too early to make it official just yet, but it does appear some record warm mins for today 2/18 will likely go down. Right now, the likely candidates are BWG/SDF/FFT to set new records, and LEX to tie. Seeing some pretty gusty winds early this morning as a 50-60 knot low level jet ramps over the area, and some of the momentum finds its way to the surface. Most gusts should stay in the 20 to 30 mph range. Some light rain expected later this morning to move mainly across our northern CWA. Amounts less than a tenth of an inch are expected, and will more likely be confined to a few hundredths where measurable rainfall does occur. Rain ends W to E from late morning through early afternoon as we lose the low level jet core to the east. A dry afternoon and evening is then expected.

We keep pretty heavy cloud cover in place today, so our warming will have to be done on pure warm advection. As a result, do think we will fall short of record warmth for today, but we'll still keep an eye on those trends as we will be starting out pretty mild. Can't completely rule it out just yet.

The exit region of a mid to upper level impulse overspreads our region tonight, and as a result, we get another surge in low level jetting responding beneath it. This should initiate scattered showers, and perhaps some isolated and elevated thunderstorms. Pretty meager MUCAPE values (100-250 J/KG), so should just be run of the mill storms, if at all. Another mild night expected, and some record warm mins may once again be in jeopardy.

LONG TERM /THURSDAY THROUGH TUESDAY/

Issued at 311 AM EST Wed Feb 18 2026

Thursday - Thursday Night...

A ~995 mb surface low will move from the eastern Plains up into the western Great Lakes Thursday into Thursday night. Meanwhile, a modest warm sector characterized by near-record temps in the upper 60s and low 70s, and dew points in the 55 to 60 degree range will become established over our region. Gusty winds expected through the afternoon in this warm sector, with some gusts of 30+ mph likely. Destabilization in the warm sector does expect to yield somewhere between 250-750 J/KG of ML CAPE, which is sufficient given the shear profile, and an overall more compact convective column (tops only 20k feet?). These values have been consistent in LREF/NBM data for several days, and are now backed up by the HREF that has come into range.

The mid to upper jet pattern will feature the exit region of an 80- 90 knot impulse at H5 overspreading the warm sector through the afternoon and evening, with a 35 to 40 knot low level jet responding beneath. This creates a favorable shear profile for organized convection, and for rotating updrafts should those updrafts be robust enough. 18/00z HREF suggest 0-3 km SRH values on the order of 300-400 m2/s2, and 0-1km values in the 200-250 m2/s2. Expect any organized updraft to have the potential to rotate, along with at least some tornado threat. It is interesting to note, however, that the 18/00z HREF points at UH tracks mostly over central IL/IN, and largely spares our CWA. This could be due to pretty shallow overall convection, and/or some degree of capping that has shown up in forecast soundings.

Overall confidence is going to remain in the low to medium range for now mainly due to how shallow the convection is expected to be. Have seen plenty of tornadic low-topped mini supercells with tops in the 20-25K feet range, but not as sure about tops of 17-20 K feet? Outside of the tornado threat, there does appear to be some hail and isolated damaging wind threat. Freezing levels will be less than 10 k feet Thursday afternoon into the evening, and mixed storm modes of mini-supercell/multicell clusters could produce locally damaging wind with the aid of 40 knot low level jetting.

Not much has changed with expected timing as the best window for anything strong to severe should reside in the 21z to 06z time frame. Initial storm modes would have the best chance at being low- topped supercells, with later storm modes closer to the approaching cold being more in the multicell cluster/line segment category. I would say the threat has continued to trend a bit north, and mostly just concerned about I-64 corridor and northward with this conditional severe threat. The new SPC Day 2 Outlook looks pretty reasonable for category placement and probs with each hazard from this perspective.

Will throw this little tidbit in as well. Noticed that some pretty steep low level lapse rates stay in place until cold front passage overnight on Thursday night. Low level jetting in the 35 knot range may linger that long, we could see some solid gusts in the 30 to 40 mph range. We may end up flirting with Wind Advisory criteria Thursday PM well into the night. Something we may have to consider.

Friday - Tuesday...

Friday brings dry conditions in the wake of the passing cold front. Only a little bit of a cool down behind this lead cold front, and highs will still reach into the 50s and low 60s across the area. We could see a little rain across our southern CWA Friday night as a wave pushes through the zonal flow to our south. Carrying some chances for that time frame, but some data keeps us completely dry.

Saturday and Saturday night look mostly dry, but will continue to trend a bit cooler with Saturday highs in the upper 40s and low 50s for most. This will be the last of the milder days as a stronger cold front looks to push through Saturday night as a more intense carves out an eastern CONUS trough. Saturday night lows are back below freezing, and any light precipitation associated with the shortwave rotating through our area, could change over to a little snow to end. Shouldn't be a big deal as mild and wet temps ahead of a brief snow change over rarely does much of anything.

Looks to be colder and dry heading into the first part of next week. Canadian high pressure and dry zonal flow aloft will yield little to speak of for sensible weather. Sunday and Monday night lows look to return to upper teens low 20s values. Highs on Monday only expected to be in the 30s, but we do recover to the low and mid 40s by Tuesday.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z THURSDAY/

Issued at 1255 AM EST Wed Feb 18 2026

A somewhat messy TAF cycle with conditions transitioning in and out of VFR/MVFR thresholds. Expecting some MVFR ceilings to build in later this morning, along with a chance for some light rain showers. A very strong LLJ is in place, however no LLWS mention due to surface gustiness and the lack of an inversion below 2000 feet. After morning showers clear out, do expect ceilings to try a return to VFR by late afternoon and early evening. SSW surface winds will stay pretty gusty through much of the period with a few gusts in the 20 to 25 mph range through mid to late afternoon.

LMK WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

KY...None. IN...None.