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141
FXUS61 KRLX 060603
AFDRLX

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
National Weather Service Charleston WV
203 AM EDT Sat Jul 6 2024

.SYNOPSIS...
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A cold front crosses overnight into Saturday morning, with
drier weather in store for the weekend.
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&&

.NEAR TERM /THROUGH TODAY/...
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As of 200 AM Saturday...

Thunderstorms have dissipated and showers continue to diminish
as they traverse WV ahead of an approaching cold front. The
threat for additional thunder at some point during the remainder
of the overnight or early Saturday morning hours appears to be
waning.

As of 1235 AM Saturday...

Further amended PoPs as a broken line of showers ahead of the
cold front, continues moving through the middle Ohio Valley.
There continue to be a few of lightning in this activity, so
maintained mentions of thunder through the overnight and early
morning hours. This activity has also prompted our issuance of
flash flood warnings given microscopic flash flood guidance
values of under a quarter of an inch in 1, 3 and even 6 hours,
from the heavy earlier rainfall there.

Otherwise, rest of the forecast remains on track.

As of 1020 PM Friday...

Amended POPs as another broken line of showers, most likely
aligned with the cold front, pressing into our western zones.
A few isolated instances of lightning have been seen in this
activity, so maintained mentions of convection into the
overnight hours. Otherwise, rest of the forecast remains on
track.

As of 505 PM Friday...

Allowed the Heat Advisory to expire this evening as heat index
values begin to lower for the day.

Will also be making some adjustments to POPs for the evening
timeframe as a new round of convection begins to develop just
west of the Ohio River. This seems to tie in well with newly
updated CAMs for this evening, indicating another active round
of strong to possibly severe storms from now until around 11 PM
tonight.

As of 1220 PM Friday...

Mostly sunny skies, especially across the southern half of the
forecast area will allow significant destabilization through early
this afternoon ahead of an advancing shortwave. Convection
associated with this feature is moving through eastern KY and is
expected to intensify as it reaches our western counties around 2-3
PM. With the forcing from the aforementioned shortwave, expect
activity to continue/develop into a linear structure with bowing
segments with wind damage as the primary threat. Although low level
turning is minimal, any northeasterly surges in this line will need
to be monitored for brief QLCS tornadoes as southwesterly 0-3KM
shear vectors approach 30KTs, but the overall threat for tornadoes
is low.

Localized very heavy rainfall rates with this activity may also
yield some localized flash flooding, especially where more
significant rain has fallen in the last 24 hours. Overall, this
activity should be fair progressive, except for any northeast surges
which could yield at least some training. Think the threat remains
isolated enough to forgo any flash flood watches.

Cold frontal passage overnight may yield some additional non-severe
showers and storms prior to exiting east by Saturday morning.

In the wake of afternoon and evening precipitation, will see at
least some patchy fog or low stratus heading into Saturday morning.
After any morning fog burns off Saturday is expected to be a mainly
quiet day - with slightly cooler and less humid conditions.
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&&

.SHORT TERM /TONIGHT THROUGH SUNDAY NIGHT/...
As of 220 PM Friday...

High pressure should allow for clear to mostly clear skies and
dry weather through the period. Lower dew points and calm winds
under the high pressure will yield cooler overnight temps,
especially Saturday night, when lows will be down into the 60s
area-wide. We can also expect some valley fog, with chances a
bit higher on Saturday night compared to Sunday night. Highs on
Sunday look to be a bit above normal, with mid-70s to mid-80s in
higher terrain and upper 80s to lower 90s in the lowlands.

&&

.LONG TERM /MONDAY THROUGH FRIDAY/...
As of 1245 PM Friday...

Southwest flow returns on Monday, along with the heat and
humidity, and some showers and storms may start to creep into
the higher terrain and the southern coalfields that evening.
However, the bulk of shower and storm potential looks to hold
off until Tuesday or Tuesday night, when an upper-level trough
may push a front through the area.

That said, there is some disagreement among both deterministic
and ensemble models on the timing of the front`s passage, with
some solutions not having the upper-trough push the front
through until Wednesday. The timing uncertainty has actually
increased a bit from yesterday, so we don`t have as many Likely
POPs (55-75%) on Tuesday and Tuesday night, and the Chance POPS
(25-55%) are `smeared` over a broader time frame, stretching
from Tuesday through Wednesday evening. We should be able to
tighten up and increase POPs in the coming days as models come
into better agreement on timing. Any ridging behind the front
may be on the `dirty` side, so at least some shower and t-storm
chances remain in the forecast for Thursday.

On the temperature side of things, Monday will be quite hot,
with highs mainly low to mid-90s in the lower elevations. We`ll
have to monitor the dew point forecast closely for Heat Advisory
potential. As of right now, it looks like dew points may not
increase too much Temps may get knocked down towards normal by
Wednesday and Thursday due to the eventual frontal passage, but
at this time it does not look like a very strong push of cooler
or drier air.

&&

.AVIATION /06Z SATURDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY/...
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As of 200 AM Saturday...

Showers and thunderstorms continue to diminish as they move
east across WV overnight, ahead of a cold front. Nonetheless, at
least showers will reach and cross the mountains during the
predawn hours.

A greater chance for ceiling and visibility reduction is from
fog and stratus/stratocumulus that is expected to form in the
leftover moisture from the rain Friday, amid light low level
flow. IFR visibility is most likely at PKB, which had nearly an
inch rainfall Friday.

The fog should lift around dawn, perhaps briefly into stratus.
Any stratus or stratocu should lift and scatter out by late
morning, and then the rest of the day will bring a cumulus VFR
field that will fade by sunset.

Light southwest surface flow ahead of the cold front overnight
will become light west behind it on Saturday, and then calm
Saturday night. Flow aloft will generally be light west.

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

FORECAST CONFIDENCE: Medium.

ALTERNATE SCENARIOS: Development of fog and MVFR stratocu/IFR
stratus overnight, and its dissipation Saturday morning, 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                                   SAT 07/06/24
UTC 1HRLY       05   06   07   08   09   10   11   12   13   14   15   16
EDT 1HRLY       01   02   03   04   05   06   07   08   09   10   11   12
CRW CONSISTENCY  H    H    H    H    H    L    M    H    H    H    H    H
HTS CONSISTENCY  H    H    H    H    H    H    L    H    H    H    H    H
BKW CONSISTENCY  H    H    M    M    H    H    H    H    H    H    H    H
EKN CONSISTENCY  H    M    H    H    H    H    H    M    H    M    H    H
PKB CONSISTENCY  H    M    L    L    M    L    L    H    M    H    H    H
CKB CONSISTENCY  H    H    H    H    M    H    H    M    H    L    M    H

AFTER 06Z SUNDAY...
VLIFR in dense fog is likely overnight Saturday night into early
Sunday morning.
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&&

.RLX WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
WV...None.
OH...None.
KY...None.
VA...None.

&&

$$

SYNOPSIS...FK/TRM/JP
NEAR TERM...MEK/TRM/JP
SHORT TERM...FK
LONG TERM...FK
AVIATION...TRM