862
FXUS63 KJKL 262342
AFDJKL

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
National Weather Service Jackson KY
642 PM EST Wed Nov 26 2025

.KEY MESSAGES...

- A strong cold front moved across the area this afternoon and has
  brought gusty winds up to 35 mph in its wake - lasting into the
  first part of the evening.

- A cold and drier airmass will settle into the region for
  Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

- There is still considerable uncertainty in the forecast for the
  early to middle part of next week. Some wintry precipitation is
  possible during the Monday night through Tuesday night period.

&&

.UPDATE...
Issued at 603 PM EST WED NOV 26 2025

Made some minor edits to Sky grids through this evening based on
current cloud cover not being quite as expansive as the previous
forecast had. Otherwise, the forecast is on track with no
significant changes.

&&

.SHORT TERM...(This evening through Thursday night)
Issued at 220 PM EST WED NOV 26 2025

19Z sfc analysis shows a cold front now exiting eastern Kentucky.
This is bringing gusty west to northwest winds of up to 35 mph to
mainly northern parts of the area in its wake. An SPS is in
effect for these winds for locations generally north of a line
from Jackson County east to Pike County. In addition, colder air
is working into the JKL CWA with readings ranging from the upper
30s in the northwest to the mid 50s in the far southeast. At the
same time, dewpoints have fallen into the upper 20s and lower 30s
throughout the area. After some initial sunny skies in the wake
of the front, additional clouds are streaming in for the northern
parts of the area this afternoon, while the last of the spotty
light rain exited with the boundary.

The models, and their individual ensemble suites, are in pretty
good agreement aloft through the short term portion of the
forecast. They all depict a strong, compact shortwave trough
lifting through the Great Lakes tonight into Thursday morning.
While that feature pulls away from the area, more energy will be
pouring into the Tennessee Valley and start to consolidate over
the Deep South before it sweeps east and off the Carolina coast by
Thursday evening. This process will keep fast northwest flow at
mid-levels over eastern Kentucky, but the better impulses will
pass by either north or south of our area of responsibility. The
very small spread among the models bolstered using the NBM as the
starting point of the forecast grids with minimal adjustments
needed - mainly to include some small terrain distinction for
temperatures tonight and more so Thursday night for some enhanced
ridge to valley differences.

Sensible weather features dry and colder air brought in on slowly
diminishing northwesterly winds in the wake of the cold front that
passed out of the area during the afternoon. Some low clouds
trail behind the front, north, but for the most part skies will
be clearing by late evening. This will make for a chilly night,
across the board, as readings bottom in the upper 20s and lower
30s by Thanksgiving morning. More sunshine can be expected on
Thursday thanks to high pressure between systems while
temperatures struggle to get out of the 30s for most places. This
will lead to an even colder night with more in the way of terrain
distinction in temperatures into Friday morning. Despite the
chill, eastern Kentucky will be spared some of the worst weather,
and the travel mess that goes along with it, taking place well to
the north of Kentucky this holiday period.

The changes to the NBM starting point were primarily focused on
adding in more details for the temperatures tonight to include
some minor ridge to valley distinctions with more showing up
Thursday night. As for PoPs, kept them in the single digits or
zero, in line with all guidance through Thanksgiving night.

.LONG TERM...(Friday through Wednesday)
Issued at 215 PM EST WED NOV 26 2025

The period begins Friday morning with dry northwesterly flow and
cold advection continuing on the upstream side of a highly-amplified
upper trough over the East Coast. The cold advection winds down by
the evening as surface high pressure moves over the area, with warm
advection beginning late Friday night and increasing into the
weekend ahead of the next system which arrives late Saturday and
lasts through much of Sunday before exiting to the east. This
shortwave will dig southeast from the PacNW through the Central
Rockies into the Central CONUS before ejecting northeast through the
Great Lakes and Ohio Valley through the day Sunday.

There may be some initial p-type concerns in the far northeastern
and southeastern parts of the forecast area at the onset of
precipitation Saturday night, which may struggle to warm up earlier
in the day after the chilly conditions from the morning, with an
hour or two of light wintry precipitation possible due to
evaporational cooling of a dry low-level air mass. However, no
winter weather impacts are expected at this time as increasingly
warmer air moves into the region and changes any potential wintry
precipitation to all rain. Previous WPC/CPC outlooks highlighted
parts of the area for a heavy rain potential with this system, but
it looks like the progressive nature and better moisture advection
being diverted more south and east will keep heavy rain concerns
minimal.

After what is increasingly looking like a drier period of weather
Sunday night into Monday (despite the NBM chance PoPs currently),
the next system arrives with an amplified shortwave moving from west
to east across the CONUS for late Monday night through Tuesday.
There are still significant model disagreements and run-to-run
inconsistencies between and within operational and ensemble member
systems with this system, but it bears close watching due to
potential wintery weather concerns for the late Monday night through
Tuesday night period, as it appears the rain-snow low-level
thickness line will be situated across at least parts of the
forecast area. Depending on how the system evolves, cold advection
upslope snow showers may occur Tuesday night into Wednesday on the
back side of this system.

Users of the NWS and NDFD forecasts are advised to not rely solely
on deterministic forecasts of wintery precipitation and especially
snow accumulations this far out. Forecasts are virtually guaranteed
to change many times between now and the early to middle part of
next week. As it stands as of early afternoon Wednesday, NBM v4.3
probability of exceedance values for greater than 1 inch of snow
for the Tuesday time period range from 15 to 25 percent mainly
north of the Mountain Parkway, and roughly 5 to 15 percent from
the Mountain Parkway south through the remainder of southeastern
Kentucky to the Tennessee and Virginia borders.

&&

.AVIATION...(For the 00Z TAFS through 00Z Thursday evening)
ISSUED AT 640 PM EST WED NOV 26 2025

Winds will diminish by late night before picking up again during
the day on Thursday. The lowest clouds are holding on longest in
northern parts of the area where some CIGs will flirt with MVFR
conditions through the few hours. Those CIGS will then break up
later tonight with SKC conditions then holding through the rest of
the period.

&&

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

&&

$$

UPDATE...CMC
SHORT TERM...GREIF
LONG TERM...CMC
AVIATION...GINNICK/VORST