textproduct: Louisville

KEY MESSAGES

* Warm days, cool nights, and dry weather continues through Saturday.

* The next significant chance for widespread rainfall is not expected until this weekend, with the highest confidence in rain (60-80%) occurring late Saturday night and Sunday.

* A more unsettled weather pattern is expected next week, with showers and storms possible during the middle of next week.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 255 AM EDT Wed Oct 28 2026

This Morning through Friday Night...

High clouds continue to stream across the region this morning in association with a subtle H5 shortwave moving across Indiana. As this wave ejects to the NE, drier air and clearing skies will advect in from the mid-Miss. Valley later today, with mostly sunny skies expected for all by early afternoon. While patchy morning fog has been a common occurrence recently, would expect the more well-mixed boundary layer to keep fog development at a minimum this morning, but some very isolated fog banks can't be ruled out in the deepest river valleys.

Otherwise, today should be another unseasonably warm day with highs reaching the mid-to-upper 70s. Tonight, clear skies should allow for the sheltered river valleys to decouple, with temperatures dropping quickly after sunset. While some of the HREF members show patchy fog developing Thursday morning, increasing winds atop the boundary layer may keep fog to a the deepest valleys once again, and the REFS is less bullish on fog development. For now, we'll leave fog out of tonight's forecast, with lows expected to range from near 40 in the coldest valleys to near 50 in urban/well-mixed locations.

Thursday and Friday will see fairly similar temperatures with highs in the mid-to-upper 70s to near 80 and lows mainly in the 40s. A weak cold front will try to move through the area Thursday night; however, building ridging aloft should cause the system to stall out and dissipate early Friday. Dry weather will continue likewise, though clouds should steadily increase through the day on Friday. Increasing clouds and mid-/upper-level moisture should lead to milder low temperatures Friday night.

Saturday through Sunday Night...

As we head into the weekend, a shortwave trough associated with the remnants of TC Vance are expected to move across the southern Plains and eject toward the Ohio Valley. Moisture will increase from the SW ahead of this disturbance, with a plume of 1.25"+ PW values moving into the area Saturday night. Confidence has been increasing that the daytime hours on Saturday will remain dry, with now 80-90% of ensemble members keeping the area rain free through 00Z Sunday.

There is still quite a bit of uncertainty in the impacts from the weekend system, as the 00Z (10/28) ECMWF run now keeps the entire area dry through the weekend. With this being said, 85-95% of ensemble members do have measurable precipitation at some point Saturday night through Sunday, so there's still better odds than not that we'll see some rain this weekend. However, we'll have to see if this drier outlier becomes a trend over the next several runs. High temperatures should cool a bit over the weekend thanks to the extra clouds and moisture, particularly on Sunday, though we should still be above normal for the end of October. Low temperatures will be mild in the 50s, well above normal for this time of year.

Early-to-Mid Next Week...

A more active weather pattern is expected next week, with a lot of lingering uncertainty in the details at this time. The source of much of the uncertainty is a fairly complex synoptic pattern across North America. Sunday into Monday, troughing over the Pacific NW will get nudged to the east by an approaching Gulf of Alaska cyclone. As this trough moves east of the Rockies, the subtropical and polar stream waves are expected to come out of phase, resulting in the development of a cutoff low over the center of the CONUS early-to-mid next week. The low should meander across the Plains until another polar stream wave picks it up later in the week, at which point it is expected to move into the eastern US.

In the vicinity and ahead of this disturbance, increasing SW flow should bring a warm, moist air mass off of the Gulf, setting up the potential for several rounds of showers and storms. Timing and positioning of where this sets up is still quite variable between medium range guidance members, so we'll have to see some convergence in model solutions before we can have too much confidence. General signals point to continued mild temperatures until the upper low/sfc cold front passes, with cooling temperatures later next week.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z THURSDAY/

Issued at 125 AM EDT Wed Oct 28 2026

VFR conditions are expected during the upcoming TAF period. There is a low (10-20%) chance for some patchy MVFR fog at BWG and HNB around sunrise; however, there may be just enough mixing to keep the more prevalent fog from developing. Otherwise, today winds should increase to around 4-8 kt out of the S/SW as high clouds gradually clear to the east. Light S/SE winds are expected tonight.

LMK WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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