284
FXUS63 KJKL 070010 AAA
AFDJKL

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION...UPDATED
National Weather Service Jackson KY
710 PM EST Thu Mar 6 2025

.KEY MESSAGES...

- Milder temperatures return to finish the week, along with an
  expectation of rain Friday night into early Saturday.

- Well above normal temperatures are expected by the middle of
  next week.

- Low relative humidity and an increase in winds could result in
  near critical fire weather Tuesday and/or Wednesday afternoons.

&&

.UPDATE...
Issued at 645 PM EST THU MAR 6 2025

23Z sfc analysis shows high pressure building in through the
Tennessee Valley. This is helping to clear the skies over eastern
Kentucky this evening as the winds area settling. Temperatures are
generally in the mid to upper 30s currently. Meanwhile, amid
mostly light westerly winds, dewpoints are in the low to mid 20s
most places. Have updated the forecast mainly to add in the latest
T/Td/Sky obs for those grids. Did also adjust low temperatures to
include a bit more terrain detail given the developing good
radiational cooling conditions. These adjustments have been sent
to the NDFD and web servers along with a freshening of the zones
and SAFs.

&&

.SHORT TERM...(This evening through Friday night)
Issued at 309 PM EST THU MAR 6 2025

The clearing trend forecasted in the models is underway, and will
continue into this evening from southwest to northeast across the
forecast area. Good to excellent radiational cooling is expected
tonight with clear skies, surface high pressure overhead, and light
winds, setting the stage for decent ridge-valley temperature splits
of at least several degrees.

Clouds will rush back into the area from the west in association
with the next disturbance late tonight, with models depicting a warm
front developing somewhere across the Ohio Valley into northeastern
Kentucky. Models depict decent isentropic lift and the potential for
some virga or light precipitation developing toward morning,
especially along and north of the Mountain Parkway. Thinking the
NBM was a little overdone in this depiction, so utilized a bit of
CONShort to temper PoPs close to the 15 percent needed for a
mention in text and point-to-click forecasts. Most locations will
likely remain dry, but a brief period of light snow or rain and/or
flurries/drizzle limited in areal extent will be possible, with
little to no impacts expected at this time.

In addition to the precipitation forecast, the temperature forecast
will be a bit tricky as well, as there will likely be a temperature
gradient wherever the warm front sets up over northeastern
Kentucky. Have thus forecasted upper 40s to lower 50s north and
northeast to mid 50s to near 60 degrees to the south of the
projected warm front for highs Friday.

The aforementioned disturbance and cold front moves across the area
late Friday night into Saturday morning and bring the next round of
rain within mild zonal flow. Expect temperatures to start Friday
night off on the warmer side in the 40s and 50s before beginning to
fall toward morning as the cold front moves south and southeast
across the forecast area. Precipitation amounts will be generally
less than 0.25" due to the progressive and weakening nature of this
system.

.LONG TERM...(Saturday through Thursday)
Issued at 516 PM EST Thu Mar 6 2025

While the long term forecast period begins and ends with active
weather, the majority of it features surface high pressure and
mid/upper level ridging. These features favor sunnier and warmer
sensible weather from Monday to Wednesday, but before then, our
attention turns towards two distinct systems this weekend.

The first system is marked by the passage of a weakening surface
cold front on Saturday morning. Saturday`s forecast conditions will
depend on one`s location relative to this front. Ahead of the
boundary, expect rain showers and relatively warmer temperatures
early on in the day. Behind it, winds shift towards NW flow and
cold/dry air advection kicks in. The front is expected to be over
northwestern portions of the forecast area on Saturday morning,
before moving SSE as the day progresses. Thus, on Saturday morning,
temperatures across our northwestern Bluegrass counties will be in
the 30s. A few, non-impactful snowflakes may mix in with the rain
before dry air seeps into the column and allows skies to clear. As a
result, afternoon highs should recover into the 40s across the
northwest. Further south and east, temperatures will be in the 50s
ahead of the front. After it passes through the rest of the area
later that afternoon, temperatures drop into the 40s and the rain
quickly tapers off. However, the quasi-zonal flow aloft and the
deamplification of the parent shortwave disturbance mean that the
front is likely to become diffuse as it enters the Tennessee Valley
on Saturday night.

This will set the stage for a second, southern stream system on
Sunday. That system will have more robust upper level support; a
closed upper level low will eject out of Texas and into the Gulf
Coast states on Saturday night. Guidance generally agrees on this
feature`s evolution, but the stubborn GFS continues to resolve a
faster, more northeasterly ejection. If this solution came to
fruition, the remnants of Saturday`s boundary would nudge back north
on Sunday morning into the Cumberland basin. A narrow corridor of
moisture return may materialize in our far southern and southeastern
counties in this scenario, which, in turn, would yield light
precipitation chances there. Other pieces of guidance, such as the
ECMWF, keep the parent system`s track closer to the I-10 corridor. A
southern trajectory would allow post-frontal high pressure to build
deeper into our forecast area on Sunday, resulting in drier weather.
The current forecast grids reflect a median solution in which mid-
upper level cloud cover streams back into the southeastern half of
the forecast area on Sunday morning. Slight precipitation chances
(less than 20%) correspondingly spread across the Tennessee and
Virginia state lines, but anything that falls would have to overcome
the antecedent dryness of the post-frontal airmass to actually reach
the ground. The progressive nature of this second system means that
it will eject east of the Appalachians by Sunday evening, and drier
air will wrap around its backside overnight. Skies will clear as
this happens, and afternoon highs in the 50s will give way to ridge-
valley temperature splits.

Monday morning begins with cooler valleys (near freezing) and warmer
ridgetops (mid 30s), which is a typical sensible weather response to
the building upper level ridge/surface high pressure combination
that is expected in Eastern Kentucky for the first half of the next
work week. As these ridging features gradually propagate eastward,
southerly return flow and ample amounts of solar radiation will
allow afternoon highs to progressively warm from the 60s on Monday
to well into the 70s on Wednesday. Ridge/valley splits continue each
night through Wednesday morning, with lows in the 40s/30s on Tuesday
morning and in the upper/mid 40s on Wednesday. Other typical
responses to these ridging conditions include dry air aloft and
efficient diurnal mixing. Combined, this favors gusty afternoons
with plummeting RH readings. This is a recipe for localized fire
weather concerns, especially as the atmospheric pressure gradient
tightens on Wednesday ahead of the next storm system. If enough
moisture return is realized, the seasonably warm air in place could
lead to convection with that system. PoPs return to the forecast on
Wednesday evening to capture this potential, and Thursday looks
rather rainy. At this moment in time, it is too soon to provide
specifics details regarding thunderstorm hazards or rainfall
amounts. That being said, the dynamic nature of this system, and
perhaps another one just beyond the end of the period, bears
watching.

&&

.AVIATION...(For the 00Z TAFS through 00Z Friday evening)
ISSUED AT 710 PM EST THU MAR 6 2025

VFR conditions were present to begin the period as the bulk of any
lower clouds had shifted off to the east. Look for diminishing
west-northwesterly winds into the night - becoming light and
variable. Late tonight and into Friday morning mid and upper
level clouds will be on the increase from the west. Look for some
very light pcpn chances for much of the area on Friday with
minimal impact to the terminals expected while winds will be
southerly at 5 to 10 kts.

&&

.JKL WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
NONE.
&&

$$

UPDATE...GREIF
SHORT TERM...CMC
LONG TERM...MARCUS
AVIATION...CMC/GREIF