145
FXUS63 KJKL 130532
AFDJKL

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
National Weather Service Jackson KY
1232 AM EST Thu Nov 13 2025

.KEY MESSAGES...

- A substantial warming trend will last into the weekend, with
  temperatures reaching 10 to 15 degrees above normal by Saturday.

- The next chances for precipitation, in the form of light rain,
  will come late in the day on Friday.

- More widespread rain chances enter the forecast ahead of a cold
  front on Saturday night.

- There is a significant deal of forecast uncertainty for Sunday
  and beyond, but the pattern looks to remain active early next
  week.

&&

.UPDATE...
Issued at 1022 PM EST WED NOV 12 2025

Just a quick refresh of the grids to incorporate the latest
surface observations while also blending those obs into the
diurnal curve. Early overnight text and radio products have been
updated to reflect the changes. Grids have been saved and sent.

&&

.SHORT TERM...(This evening through Thursday night)
Issued at 220 PM EST WED NOV 12 2025

At current, an upper level low over the Great Lakes region is
causing active weather across the Northeast, meanwhile a ridge of
high pressure dominates the Intermountain West. Locally, skies
remain mostly sunny through this afternoon as high pressure
gradually builds in from the west. Breezy southerly to westerly
winds can be expected with winds 10-15 mph gusting as high as 20-25
mph until around sunset. After sunset, winds diminish considerably,
to under 10 mph from the west. Temperatures warm into the upper 50s
to low 60s this afternoon, with the warming trend continuing through
Saturday. Some high level clouds may work into the area, but this
should occur after midnight. This should allow for prime viewing of
any Aurora-Borealis effects in the area. Temperatures this evening
are expected to range from the lower 30s in the valleys to the upper
30s along ridge tops.

Thursday, 500-dm height rises continue as the Intermountain West
ridge slowly progresses eastward. Temperatures will continue to be
in the upper 50s to low 60s across Eastern Kentucky. Winds will be
lighter and out of the west to northwest. Thursday evening,
temperatures will cool into the low 30s in the valleys, and mid to
upper 30s along ridge tops.

.LONG TERM...(Friday through Wednesday)
Issued at 509 PM EST Wed Nov 12 2025

When the long term forecast period opens on Friday morning, the
forecast area will be positioned in between longwave troughing over
the Atlantic Coast and longwave ridging over much of the Central
CONUS. As these mid-/upper-level features gradually propagate
eastward, their surface reflections will do the same. A broader area
of high pressure will push east into the Central Appalachians, and a
better defined high is expected to park itself over the Gulf Coast.
While the flow aloft is poised to remain northwesterly on Friday,
lower-level winds will veer towards the southwest in accordance
with these shifting features. This sets up a regime of warm air
advection and moisture return headed into the weekend, and coupled
with midlevel height rises, a week-end warming trend appears likely.

Within Friday`s WAA regime, weak isentropic upglide is forecast to
yield increasing cloud coverage and perhaps some light, stratiform-
type rain. Some guidance has tried to resolve some wintery
precipitation mixing in with the rain in the Bluegrass on Friday
morning, but this is not a realistic solution. Rather, it is an
artifact of the 6 hourly long-term PoP grids and antecedent cold air
in the valleys on Thursday evening. The air aloft is far too warm
for this to come to fruition, and the air at the surface is forecast
to quickly warm into the 50s on Friday morning. As surface winds
gradually veer to the SW post warm FROPA, WAA will allow highs to
climb a few degrees above-normal. The warmest MaxTs (mid 60s) will
come in the Lake Cumberland Region, whereas areas north of the
Mountain Parkway will see highs closer to 60 degrees proper.
Friday`s warm front is poised to stall out closer to the Ohio River
as the parent cyclone occludes in Canada. The arrival of a shortwave
disturbance aloft will increase rain chances on Friday night, but it
is likely to remain both light in magnitude and stratiform in
nature. QPF remains minimal, and the greatest rain chances will
likely be in NE portions of the CWA, closest to the boundary.
Perhaps the more noticeable sensible weather impact will be the
insolation of Friday night`s lows. Persistent SW winds and the
increase sky cover will keep MinTs (upper 40s/lower 50s) much warmer
than normal (upper 30s).

Those mild overnight temperatures will already give Saturday`s highs
a head start relative to climatological norms, but the strengthening
of southwesterly low-level winds and the proximity of an upper
atmospheric ridge axis will be the main drivers of MaxTs to 10-15
degrees above average. Lingering cloud coverage could cause forecast
highs near 70 degrees to under-peform (especially in NE KY), but the
aforementioned ridge should foster clearing to at least partly sunny
skies in the afternoon. The strengthening winds are attributed to a
tightening pressure gradient ahead of an approaching cold front on
Saturday night and efficient diurnal mixing. The EPS ensemble
collectively resolves a 60-80% chance of wind gusts above 25 mph on
Saturday afternoon, and the baseline NBM forecast guidance used to
populate the long term grids is locally known to under-do wind speeds
in these SW return flow scenarios. As higher-resolution guidance
begins to resolve Saturday`s system and confidence
subsequently increases, the wind grids will likely trend upwards.

By Saturday night, a better defined shortwave disturbance will cause
the cold front`s parent troughing to dig into the Great Lakes. Its
surface reflection (the previously-discussed occluded Canadian low)
will move towards Ontario/Quebec and drag a cold front through the
Ohio River Valley. The cold frontal forcing and marginal pre-frontal
moisture return will combine to yield more widespread rain shower chances
on Saturday night. LREF Ensemble Mean PWATs peak around 1 inch just
ahead of the front, and the quality of this system`s moisture return
will be limited by the SW flow being contained to only lower levels
of the atmosphere. 500mb and 700mb flow will remain northwesterly
and westerly (respectively) leading into the event, robbing the
column of a truly moist airmass. The modified nature of the moisture
return will also keep instability at bay, and with the better
kinematic dynamics displaced further north, Saturday night`s
activity will likely remain in the form of generic rain showers.

After the passage of this initial boundary, forecast confidence
begins to decrease significantly. A secondary front is likely to
approach the region to close out the weekend, but differences in the
resolution of its timing lead to increasing model spread in Sunday`s
sensible weather forecast. If that second cold front moves through
on Sunday morning, temperatures could follow a non-diurnal curve.
This leads to 6 standard deviations of spread in the European
ensemble`s Sunday temperature guidance. As such, the baseline NBM
guidance was maintained in this afternoon`s forecast package. A few
light rain showers are in the forecast out ahead of the front, and
as post-FROPA winds turn west-northwesterly, a clearing/cooling
trend is expected. Sunday night looks to favor ridge/valley
temperature splits, but model spread remains too high to provide
specific values. The lack of confidence due to differing model
solutions compounds headed into early next week, and the NBM
contains 10 to 15 degrees of 25th/75th percentile temperature spread
for each forecast period within this time frame. The aforementioned
European ensemble spikes to 7 degrees of standard deviation by then,
further demonstrating this greater-than-usual forecast certainty.

Generally speaking, the pattern in the extended forecast period
looks to remain on the active side. The region will remain on the
southwestern periphery of broad troughing over the NE CONUS, with
longwave ridging over the Plains. Individual disturbances will
likely navigate through the resultant northwesterly flow aloft and
approach the forecast area, but the currently-available forecast
guidance resolves their amplitude and timing quite difference. The
deterministic NBM remains a reasonable middle-ground solution given
the uncertainty. In sensible weather terms, this translates to
periodic rain chances and seasonably appropriate temperatures in the
upper 50s (highs) and lower 40s (lows) to close out the long term
forecast period.

&&

.AVIATION...(For the 06Z TAFS through 06Z Thursday night)
ISSUED AT 1232 AM EST THU NOV 13 2025

VFR conditions are forecast to persist through the TAF period.
Mostly clear skies are expected throughout the period. Winds are
forecast to be light and variable overnight but will increase
slightly to around 7 to 9 knots out of the northwest after
14Z/Thursday. Winds will begin to diminish after 00Z to light and
variable.

&&

.JKL WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
None.

&&

$$

UPDATE...VORST
SHORT TERM...GINNICK
LONG TERM...MARCUS
AVIATION...VORST