688
FXUS63 KJKL 090840
AFDJKL

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
National Weather Service Jackson KY
440 AM EDT Sun Aug 9 2026

.KEY MESSAGES...

- Showers and thunderstorm chances will persist through the middle
  of the new work week. The greatest coverage is expected from
  Tuesday through Friday. Some of those storms could arrive as
  organized clusters and a potential for strong wind gusts.

- Isolated heavy to excessive rainfall may occur where storms are
  most persistent leading to elevated concerns for flooding later
  in the week.

&&

.SHORT TERM...(Today through Monday)
Issued at 415 AM EDT SUN AUG 9 2026

07Z sfc analysis shows a stalled frontal boundary just to the
north of the Ohio River while high pressure holds over the
southeast part of the nation. The front was responsible for the
strong thunderstorms passing by the JKL CWA to the northeast early
this morning and this may become a theme leading into the new
work week. Otherwise, mostly clear skies early in the night have
become more cloudy from the south likely capping the radiational
drop off and limiting the valley fog there. As such,
temperatures and dewpoints are elevated in the lower 70s most
places, amid light winds mostly from the south to southwest.

The models, and their individual ensemble suites, are still in
good agreement aloft through the short term portion of the
forecast. They all depict a slight 5h trough axis passing through
eastern Kentucky this morning with some minor height falls and a
weakening batch of mid-level energy. Once this passes, the region
is left in the barest tilt of northwest flow which is ripe for
periodic impulses of various strength passing through - generally
to the north of the JKL CWA. These perturbations adhere to no
diurnal cycle introducing the potential for nighttime activity
well into the upcoming week. Again, given the small spread in the
models` solutions aloft, the unaltered NBM was used for the bulk
of the grids in the forecast. However, some adjustments were made
to the PoPs and thunder chances today through Monday evening
through the inclusion of coverage and intensity details from the
consensus CAMs` solutions - though generously smoothed.

Sensible weather will feature more late season summertime moist
conditions that will mean humid and very warm air with scattered,
diurnally driven, storm chances each afternoon and early evening.
Again for today, the models point to the storms favoring the
southern parts of the area for the bulk of the time, though there
will also be a potential to the north this evening and overnight
should one of those impulses aloft get frisky enough. While the
storms during the day are not expected to be too organized,
training of the cells could result in excessive rainfall concerns
in the south. At night, we will see most of the southern
convection fade out with the diminishing of the diurnal
instability allowing for at least partial clearing and the
development of patchy valley fog. However, convective development
to the northwest in the evening could lead to some impact before
dawn in the I-64 corridor that will need to be monitored as a low
probability solution. Monday will see similar warmth and humidity,
compared to today, with just isolated daytime storm chances for
mainly only the Cumberland Valley but a decaying boundary could
result in some storms early in the day in the north. Then again
towards evening, leftover boundaries north to I-64 may also kick
off some storms. The future development by late Monday will depend
on the evolution and movement from earlier storms and possible
clusters from well outside of Kentucky so confidence in timing and
coverage of the storms Monday evening and overnight is
significantly below normal.

The main adjustments to the NBM starting point were to include
the latest CAMs consensus scenario for the PoPs and thunder
potential throughout the short term. Considering the high
humidity levels limiting the impacts of radiational cooling at
night and any dry air mixdown for the afternoons - both elements
were only slightly tweaked.

.LONG TERM...(Monday night through Saturday)
Issued at 440 AM EDT SUN AUG 9 2026

The latest model data continue to indicate that the pattern aloft
will favor the formation of storm clusters any of which could
intrude on the weather for eastern Kentucky later in the new work
week. Right now SPC has Tuesday highlighted as the greatest
concern for severe weather (damaging winds) from this development
with a Slight Risk outlined in our northeast counties. Please
continue to monitor this potentially impactful weather situation.

The previous long term discussion follows:

The long term forecast period starts out on a seasonably hot note in
Eastern Kentucky, with synoptic conditions favoring efficient
diurnal warming. When the period opens on Monday morning, the area
will be positioned between a building ridge over the Southern Plains
and the subtropical ridge over the southeastern states. Models
collectively resolve midlevel height rises over the commonwealth on
Monday as the influence of the former feature grows. Both diabatic
and adiabatic warming processes will allow temperatures to climb
towards the upper 80s/lower 90s on Monday. These seasonably hot
highs will combine with the antecedent moisture (dewpoints in the
70s) to yield widespread heat indices in the 90s. A few triple digit
readings cannot be ruled out, but heat headline products are not
anticipated.

The temperature forecast is partially compromised due to
increased rain chances on Monday in southern portions of the
forecast area, which may cause localized pockets of rain-cooled
air and cause highs to under-perform. As the col previously noted
between the two synoptic ridges closes up on Monday, it will push
a subtle upper level disturbance towards the Tennessee River
Valley. This feature`s alignment with peak diurnal heating has
introduced isolated to scattered coverage PoPs (15-35%) across the
counties along the TN and VA state lines. Due to the previously-
discussed and increasing influence of the dominant ridging
features, this activity should not pose a risk for any significant
impacts. Rather, a few run-of-the-mill late summertime showers
and thunderstorms cannot be ruled out on Monday afternoon/evening.

The flow aloft is progged to turn more northwesterly overnight into
Tuesday morning, which will allow a series of shortwave impulses to
navigate around the ridge and into the forecast area. Pattern
recognition suggests that the convection associated with these
disturbances could take the form of MCSes moving through the Midwest
and the Greater Ohio River Valley. The first of those thunderstorm
complexes could affect far northern portions of the forecast area
late Monday night into Tuesday morning, and SPC has accordingly
delineated a Marginal (Level 1/5) Severe Weather Outlook in Fleming
and Rowan Counties for the period ending at 8AM Tuesday. Damaging
wind gusts would be the primary hazard type in this type of setup,
but it is uncertain how strong each complex will be by the time it
arrives in the JKL CWA. The first one will be arriving during the
diurnal instability minima, and it will probably be in a weakening
state as a result. It remains difficult to pinpoint the timing
details surrounding each shortwave, and it is equally difficult to
determine where any residual outflow boundaries and/or instability
gradients might set up in the wake of each storm complex. Forecast
uncertainty accordingly compounds as the week progresses.

With that being said, interests are encouraged to remain weather
aware on Tuesday and Wednesday. The available medium-range machine
learning models and analog-based convective guidance still paint
risks for severe weather across portions of Eastern Kentucky on
these two days. Once again, damaging wind gusts would be the favored
hazard type in such a setup, but mesoscale effects could cause the
favored risk areas to shift and other convective hazards cannot
entirely be ruled out. Any severe weather risk will be accompanied
by a threat for excessive rainfall, and WPC has already delineated a
Slight (Level 2/4) Excessive Rainfall Outlooks for portions of the
commonwealth on both Tuesday and Wednesday. Flash flooding could
develop if storms engage in training and/or backbuilding behaviors.
Given the compounding nature of the forecast uncertainty surrounding
this setup, it is too early to advertise specific rainfall totals.
Instead, we will need to monitor the output of higher-resolution
forecast models for parameter spacing that favors those behaviors.
The first MCS enters the temporal range of the long-range CAMs
tonight, and as more data becomes available in the coming days,
forecast confidence should improve.

All of this activity will culminate in the approach of a cold front
towards the end of the period. In general, increased late week cloud
cover should work to suppress the early week heat as time passes.
Temperatures are forecast to modulate back towards more
climatologically-appropriate values by Thursday. Expect highs to
return to the mid/low 80s on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and lows
to fall somewhere between the mid 60s and near 70. Precipitation
chances are more uncertain, as the extended forecast guidance suite
is split on how progressive that boundary will be. If it is slower
and/or becomes diffuse over the CWA, rain chances will persist into
the weekend. If guidance trends towards a more progressive pattern
aloft, the broad-brushed PoPs currently in the grids for Saturday
could trend downwards. The 12z Euro currently portrays the former
solution, whereas the 12z GFS resolves the latter, with a drier
continental airmass advecting into the area via more northerly flow.
Their ensemble counterparts are met with increasing model spread,
and it will be interesting to see which camp becomes more favored as
the uncertainty surrounding the mid-week MCSes subsides.

&&

.AVIATION...(For the 06Z TAFS through 06Z Sunday night)
ISSUED AT 220 AM EDT SUN AUG 9 2026

Isolated convection is still possible early this morning over
northern Kentucky as a weak cold front sags to near the Ohio
River, but confidence in coverage of the convection remains too
low to include in the northern TAF sites. Otherwise, VFR
conditions will prevail into the morning hours though valley fog
and/or some patches of low stratus develop before dawn - unlikely
to affect any TAF terminal for too long. Once the fog clears out
later in the morning, another chance of showers and thunderstorms
presents itself during the afternoon hours - though as of now
should again mainly be contained to the far southeast portion of
the state. Also, can`t rule out an evening storm in the far north. Put
in a mention of PROB30 at KSYM and KIOB TAFs as a result, could
also see a concern for KSME and KLOZ earlier in the afternoon -
will continue to monitor the CAMs forecast. Winds will generally
be southwesterly at less than 10 kts through the period; however,
locally strong and gusty winds can be expected near any storms.

&&

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

&&

$$

SHORT TERM...GREIF
LONG TERM...MARCUS/GREIF
AVIATION...JMW/GREIF