229
FXUS63 KJKL 240126
AFDJKL

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
National Weather Service Jackson KY
826 PM EST Sun Nov 23 2025

.KEY MESSAGES...

- Drier weather returns to the area through Monday afternoon.

- A series of frontal boundaries will move across the region
  between Monday night and Wednesday morning, leading to
  widespread rain chances on Tuesday.

- A colder, but drier, airmass will settle into the region for the
  beginning of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

&&

.UPDATE...
Issued at 826 PM EST SUN NOV 23 2025

Skies are clear over almost all of the area early this evening.
With near calm winds, this is allowing temperatures to drop, and
most of the area is already near or at saturation (with dew points
in the low to mid 40s, which is generally no higher than they
bottomed out during the day). It would seem only a matter of time
until fog begins to develop. The main question is how extensive
dense fog will become. Will monitor the potential need for an
advisory.

&&

.SHORT TERM...(This evening through Monday night)
Issued at 206 PM EST SUN NOV 23 2025

High pressure continues to build into the area, leading to partly
cloudy to mostly sunny conditions. There are some lingering clouds
across the Morehead area this afternoon but those are expected to
dissipate heading deeper into the afternoon. Temperatures at current
are largely in the upper 50s and low 60s across the Hal Rogers-KY 80
corridor, and a few degrees cooler north. Temperatures will
generally stay around current observations with light winds through
this evening. Fog is expected to develop again this evening, however
with the passage of a dry cold front this afternoon, and a drier
airmass moving in behind it, fog may not be as dense or widespread
as Saturday night-Sunday morning. Temperatures this evening bottom
our in the low 30s. Increasing clouds are expected to move into the
area as well from the northwest, as the next system begins to
approach the region.

Monday will remain dry through sunset, after which a series of fronts
will move into the area from the southwest, leading to increased
shower chances overnight Monday. With the area in the warm sector
under southeast flow, temperatures will be warm through the
afternoon, with many seeing low to mid 60s across the area.
Overnight lows cool into the upper 40s to near 50.

.LONG TERM...(Tuesday through Sunday)
Issued at 557 PM EST Sun Nov 23 2025

After a wet start to the long term forecast period on Tuesday, a
strong cold front will sweep through the Commonwealth on Wednesday
and advect much drier and cooler air into the region. That
continental airmass will remain in place over the forecast area for
much of the upcoming holiday weekend, with below normal temperatures
in the forecast for Thanksgiving and Black Friday. Some forecast
guidance hints at a return to more active weather late next weekend,
but forecast uncertainty increases around then.

When the period opens on Tuesday morning, persistent southwesterly
flow in the lower half of the atmospheric column will be advecting a
seasonably warm and moist airmass into the area. Widespread cloud
cover will be in place, insulating the previous night`s lows and
giving Tuesday`s highs a climatological head start. Once the sun
rises, temperatures should climb into the mid to upper 60s, and
models resolve a weak plume of (likely-elevated) instability ahead
of the week`s first cold frontal passage that afternoon/evening.
Weak frontal forcing and these marginal amounts of instability could
combine to produce a few rumbles of thunder throughout the day, but
severe thunderstorms are highly unlikely with this system. The
better probabilities for favorable convective parameter spacing
continue to be resolved further to the south in the Tennessee
Valley, and forecast model soundings indicate that any convection
north of the Tennessee state line on Tuesday will likely struggle to
become surface based. Furthermore, the parent midlevel disturbance
associated with Tuesday`s activity is forecast to deamplify upon
approach, leaving the surface front in a fairly weak state. Thus,
the majority of Tuesday`s activity is likely to fall in the form of
generic rain showers.

The weaker nature of Tuesday`s disturbance will leave a regime of
deep SW flow in place on Tuesday night as a much stronger trough
digs into the Upper Midwest. The resultant cloud cover will keep
overnight temperatures insulated once again, with MinTs in the upper
40s/lower 50s. Scattered to numerous rain showers are forecast to
continue out ahead of a second cold front, which is forecast to
reach the forecast area on Wednesday morning. By then, its parent
surface low will be occluding over the Northern Great Lakes, and a
dry slot will be wrapping around its southwestern side into the Ohio
River Valley. This will reduce both the coverage and magnitude of
Wednesday morning`s prefrontal rain showers, but reinforced the
notion that the second boundary will have a much more pronounced
temperature/moisture gradient. Westerly winds behind Wednesday`s
frontal passage are forecast to quickly advect a much cooler and
drier airmass into the forecast area. This CAA will likely prevent
Wednesday`s temperatures from following the traditional diurnal
warming curve, as temperatures are likely to fall from the 50s in
the morning to the 40s that afternoon and then below freezing that
night.

This sets the stage for a chilly start to the Thanksgiving holiday
weekend. A surface high pressure system will build into the region
behind the front while broad troughing sets up aloft over much of
the Eastern CONUS. The resultant regime of westerly to northwesterly
winds throughout the column will reinforce/strengthen cold air
advection processes, and guidance depicts midlevel geopotential
height falls headed into Black Friday. Expect chilly highs in the
upper 30s/lower 40s on Thursday and Friday, with widespread
subfreezing lows in the 20s. A few spots could reach the teens on
Friday and Saturday morning before the pattern begins to shift
again.

A clipper type system could approach the Greater Ohio River
Valley from the NW around the backside of the departing upper level
trough, but guidance resolves height rises and warming 850 temps
over Kentucky in this time frame. Thus, our CWA looks to be
positioned within that system`s warm sector, with liquid
precipitation favored. Timing and evolution details are ambiguous at
this extended temporal range, but a warming trend appears likely
headed into next week as broad midlevel ridging sets up over the SE
CONUS. This leads to a regime of quasi-zonal flow over the
commonwealth, and some guidance accordingly points towards a wet
start to December. The CPC`s experimental 8-14 day extended period
hazards outlook mirrors this sentiment; they have outlined the
region with 20-40% of heavy rain between December 1st and December
3rd. Those dates are beyond the end of this particular forecast
period, and a lot can change in between now and then. Interests are
encouraged to stay tuned to future forecast updates, but the risk of
widespread hazardous weather is low in Eastern Kentucky through the
end of November.

&&

.AVIATION...(For the 00Z TAFS through 00Z Monday evening)
ISSUED AT 826 PM EST SUN NOV 23 2025

The main concern during the period is the extent to which fog and
low stratus develop over the area tonight. With the exception of
some localized transient stratus south of KIOB, the period
started out clear with VFR conditions area wide. That will
eventually change, with the clear skies, near calm wind, and
rapidly saturating surface air leading to fog development. All TAF
sites are forecast to reach IFR or worse at least at times
overnight into early Monday. Fog then dissipates during the
morning and leaves VFR conditions to finish the period.

&&

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

&&

$$

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