261
FXUS61 KRLX 050902
AFDRLX

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
National Weather Service Charleston WV
402 AM EST Wed Feb 5 2025

.SYNOPSIS...
Potent, moisture-laden low pressure systems will impact the
area today through Thursday, this weekend, and early to mid
next week, each with heavy rain, and mixed wintry precipitation.

&&

.NEAR TERM /THROUGH TONIGHT/...
As of 400 AM Wednesday...

An overrunning patter sets up ahead of a warm front today, and
then has its greatest impacts in terms of ice accretion and
heavy rainfall tonight.

The overrunning sets up well out ahead of a warm front
stretching from the southern plains eastward to the Tennessee
Valley this morning, with a tenacious surface based inversion
beneath a pronounced warm nose aloft across the forecast area.

Saturation pressure deficits in the overrunning/isentropic lift
vanishing in the low to mid levels levels may be enough for
spotty light rain in and near the mountains today. This could
bring a few hundredths of an inch in the warned and advised
areas in the WV northeast mountains today and, if it does set up
early enough, a glaze of ice is also possible just to the west
of the northeast mountains this morning, before temperatures
rise above freezing.

The bulk of the precipitation, and ice accretion in the
mountains, will occur tonight, as the west to east oriented
warm front pushes into the area. The slow northward progress of
the front, and a strong low/mid-level warm moist feed into it,
could result in a focused west to east axis of heavier
precipitation amounts across central portions of the area,
extending east-northeastward into the warned and advised areas
in the mountains. This is when warning criteria ice accretion
of a quarter of an inch is possible, even without ice accretion
today.

As the precipitation spreads northward through the lowlands
tonight, freezing rain is also possible in interior southeast
Ohio, and have issued a winter weather advisory for ice there to
account for this.

With PW values increasing to just over an inch over much of the
forecast area tonight, rainfall rates tonight could be
sufficient to cause streams and some rivers to begin responding
overnight tonight, and could start to caused localized high
water issues, especially where locally heavier rainfall amounts
can be focused. However, current forecast rainfall amounts of a
half inch to an inch through tonight may not lead to significant
hydrological impacts until after daybreak Thursday.

In the moisture feed along and south of the warm front, wind
shear and narrow CAPE could lead to thunder, along with locally
heavier rainfall rates.

Temperatures will be slow to rise until overnight tonight, when
the tenacious surface based inversion starts to erode ahead of
the approaching warm front.

&&

.SHORT TERM /THURSDAY THROUGH FRIDAY NIGHT/...
As of 125 AM Wednesday...

A warm front will be progressing through the area at the beginning
of the short term, with warm air advection to continue allowing
unseasonably warm temperatures to dominate the forecast area. This
strong warm air advection will lead to southwest winds gusting to 20-
30 mph across the lowlands with higher gusts possible in the
mountains. Winds will subside in the lowlands Thursday night but
will persist across the higher terrain in eastern WV through early
Friday.

As a result, widespread precipitation is expected to be ongoing
Thursday into early Friday morning, with the bulk of the QPF
centered over central and eastern portions of the forecast area for
Thursday shifting eastward with time into Friday morning.
Precipitation should taper off by late morning Friday as the cold
front pushes through with mainly dry weather expected through Friday
night, although some light showers may still linger across the
higher terrain in eastern WV and southwest VA.

Rainfall rates will be fairly efficient given anomalously high PWAT
values for this time of year and the likelihood of some embedded
thunderstorms, leading to WPC to highlight most of our forecast area
in a marginal risk for excessive rainfall Thursday. This combined
with saturated soils across much of the area and persistent snowpack
in the mountains will likely lead to some flooding concerns Thursday
into early Friday.

In addition to flooding concerns, elevated instability will be
present Thursday afternoon across primarily southern portions of the
area, with MLCAPE values in the 250-500 J/kg range. Combined with
stronger shear there is at least a non-zero risk of an isolated
severe storm or two Thursday, conditional to how much instability we
manage to generate given the antecedent cloud cover and ongoing
precipitation, but even then could still see a few momentum driven
damaging gusts.

Temperatures Friday will be more seasonable with high`s in the mid
to upper 40`s across the lowlands and upper 30`s to low 40`s in the
mountains.

&&

.LONG TERM /SATURDAY THROUGH TUESDAY/...
As of 125 AM Wednesday...

A developing wave and associated surface low will be just southwest
of our forecast area early Saturday and will slide northeastward
draping a warm front across the area, providing another round of
widespread precipitation Saturday into Saturday night. This will
likely provide at least an additional inch of rain for much of the
area, exacerbating any ongoing flooding issues once again into early
next week and as a result we are once again highlighted across much
of the area by WPC with a marginal risk for excessive rainfall.

Additional disturbances are likely to impact the are early next week
but models diverge on timing and magnitude of these features,
leading to a wide range of precipitation types and amounts and as
such confidence in any one solution is low. Expecting more
seasonable temperatures for early next week after the frontal
passage Saturday night.

&&

.AVIATION /08Z WEDNESDAY THROUGH SUNDAY/...
As of 100 AM Wednesday...

A warm front will bring deteriorating flight conditions in rain
this period.

MVFR stratocumulus will continue to slowly lower at BKW,
dipping to IFR in rain with MVFR visibility Wednesday afternoon.
MVFR stratocu at EKN at times overnight will become more
persistent Wednesday afternoon, and rain is likely to lower
visibility to MVFR in rain there Wednesday night.

Outside he mountains, MVFR ceilings will hold off until Tuesday
afternoon south and Tuesday evening north, with MVFR visibility
in rain developing Tuesday evening south and later Tuesday
night north.

Low level wind shear may start to develop at least across
southern sites near the end of the TAF period, 06Z Thursday, as
the warm front approaches from the south. Flight conditions are
likely to deteriorate further overnight Wednesday night, as
rain becomes heavy at times.

Light and variable to northeast surface flow overnight will
become southeast Wednesday morning, and then strengthen and
become a bit gusty at BKW late Wednesday or Wednesday night.

FORECAST CONFIDENCE AND ALTERNATE SCENARIOS THROUGH 06Z THURSDAY...

FORECAST CONFIDENCE: Medium.

ALTERNATE SCENARIOS: Timing and degree of deteriorating flight
conditions conditions may vary.

EXPERIMENTAL TABLE OF FLIGHT CATEGORY OBJECTIVELY SHOWS CONSISTENCY
OF WFO FORECAST TO AVAILABLE MODEL INFORMATION:
H = HIGH:   TAF CONSISTENT WITH ALL MODELS OR ALL BUT ONE MODEL.
M = MEDIUM: TAF HAS VARYING LEVEL OF CONSISTENCY WITH MODELS.
L = LOW:    TAF INCONSISTENT WITH ALL MODELS OR ALL BUT ONE MODEL.

DATE                         WED 02/05/25
UTC 1HRLY       08   09   10   11   12   13   14   15   16   17   18   19
EST 1HRLY       03   04   05   06   07   08   09   10   11   12   13   14
CRW CONSISTENCY  H    H    H    H    H    H    H    H    H    M    H    H
HTS CONSISTENCY  H    H    H    H    H    H    H    H    H    H    M    M
BKW CONSISTENCY  M    H    H    H    H    H    H    H    M    M    H    H
EKN CONSISTENCY  H    H    H    H    H    H    H    H    M    L    L    M
PKB CONSISTENCY  H    H    H    H    H    H    H    H    H    H    H    H
CKB CONSISTENCY  H    H    H    H    H    H    H    H    H    H    H    H

AFTER 06Z THURSDAY...
IFR in rain heavy at times overnight Wednesday night into
Thursday.

&&

.RLX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
WV...Ice Storm Warning from 9 AM this morning to 7 AM EST Thursday
     for WVZ523-524.
     Winter Weather Advisory from 9 AM this morning to 7 AM EST
     Thursday for WVZ526.
OH...Winter Weather Advisory from 6 PM this evening to 2 AM EST
     Thursday for OHZ066-067-075-084.
KY...None.
VA...None.

&&

$$

SYNOPSIS...28/TRM
NEAR TERM...TRM
SHORT TERM...28
LONG TERM...28
AVIATION...TRM