JKL issues Area Forecast Discussion (AFD) at Mar 31, 5:55 PM EDT555
FXUS63 KJKL 312155
AFDJKL
AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
National Weather Service Jackson KY
555 PM EDT Mon Mar 31 2025
.KEY MESSAGES...
- After briefly cooler than normal conditions tonight into
Tuesday, temperatures return to above normal levels Wednesday
into next weekend.
- Parts of eastern Kentucky may see another round of strong to
severe storms Wednesday night, and then again Thursday through
Thursday night.
- There is a persistent strong signal for repeated rounds of heavy
rain and thunderstorms affecting eastern Kentucky from Wednesday
night through Sunday - especially northwest parts of the
forecast area where between 3 and 6 inches of rain will be
possible over those several days.
&&
.SHORT TERM...(This evening through Tuesday night)
Issued at 505 PM EDT MON MAR 31 2025
20Z sfc analysis shows the cold front responsible for the severe
weather last night and linger showers around today has just about
cleared out of eastern Kentucky. Conditions vary sharply across
this boundary with northwest winds of 10 mph and gusts up to 20
mph in its wake and southwesterly ones of similar speed still
reported along the Virginia border. Temperatures likewise vary
from the chilly mid 40s northwest to the mid 60s still in the far
east. Meanwhile, under mostly cloudy conditions, dewpoint range
from the mid 40s northwest to the upper 50s in the far southeast.
Scattered showers accompany the front and trail it a bit heading
into the evening - along with still a small possibility of a stray
thunderstorm nearest to the Virginia and Tennessee borders.
The models, and their individual ensemble suites, are in pretty
good agreement aloft through the short term portion of the
forecast. They all depict the final push of the eastern trough
through this part of Kentucky into tonight with 5h height falls
bottoming out amid trailing weaker impulses in fast northwest flow
tilting more zonal by Tuesday morning. Then, attention turns to
the next big weather making trough plowing through the western
half of the nation during the day, Tuesday. The approach of this
large negative anomaly at 5h will then tilt the mid level flow
more southwesterly for Kentucky into Wednesday morning - carrying
at that point just some weak energy. The small model spread aloft
supported using the NBM as the starting point for the forecast
grids through the period. Did make some adjustments mainly to add
more terrain distinction to the temperatures a bit late tonight,
but more so on Tuesday night.
Sensible weather features the end of the light pcpn associated
with this early week system and its cold front. The low clouds
linger through much of the night before some thinning and clearing
start to move into the area from the west towards dawn. This
partial clearing, and CAA post frontal, will rise the specter of
some patchy to scattered frost pockets into dawn in the western
parts of the CWA. Sunshine will return on Tuesday with a strong
temperature rebound from rather chilly morning lows amid light
east to southeast winds. It is later Tuesday night that the next
system will start to make its presence known in the tightening
pressure gradient with winds picking up from the south before
dawn. The exception will be in the valleys where light to calm
winds will work with mostly clear skies (initially) and dry
conditions to open up a ridge to valley temperature split for
most of the night - lessening towards dawn.
The changes to the NBM starting point consisted primarily of
adding more terrain details into temperatures Tuesday night and
also lowering dewpoints a tad Tuesday afternoon. Aside from this
evening for radar trends, the near zero NBM PoPs through the
short term were not adjusted.
.LONG TERM...(Wednesday through Monday)
Issued at 555 PM EDT MON MAR 31 2025
The models, and their individual ensemble suites, are in
surprisingly good agreement aloft through the long term portion
of the forecast despite a climatological outlier pattern setting
up. They all depict another deep trough at 5h pushing off to the
northwest of Kentucky to start the period followed by a large
negative anomaly developing over the Desert Southwest on Thursday
and consolidating/deepening into Friday. Downstream of the
southwestern trough strong ridging will hold over Florida and the
Southeast through the start of the weekend. This rather extreme
pattern helps to lock in fairly fast southwest flow at mid-levels
and an 850h stream able to tap into a wide open western Gulf.
Accordingly, precipitable water and moisture flux will be nearing
or exceeding a climate max for much of the region - especially to
our west and north. Although eastern Kentucky will face some
impact from this set up the bigger concern is for locations to
the west and nearer the Ohio River as the ingredients aloft set up
a persistent trend for moisture replenishment and renewed
dynamics throughout the latter part of the week. Eventually the
core of the Southwest 5h low moves east into the Mid-Mississippi
and Ohio Valleys by Sunday ending the worst of the threat for our
area with troughing and northwest mid level flow closing out the
period into early next week. The rather small model spread aloft
through the first part of the weekend supported using the NBM as
the main input to the the forecast grids. Did make some
adjustments mainly for timing purposes with the PoPs through the
rest of the week and also to beef up the winds on Wednesday.
Sensible weather features a start to the long term similar to the
event that just went through the region last evening. A deep sfc
low will race into the northern Great Lakes and push its cold
front east into an unseasonably warm and increasingly moist air
mass. This will mean a threat of severe weather for the area later
Wednesday, but again with the bigger push appearing to come after
midnight - lessening the instability but not the boundary
interaction and low level jet dynamics that brought us much of the
negative impacts of last night. For this reason, eastern Kentucky
is again on the fringes of an Enhanced outlook from the SPC
through 12Z Thursday with a lingering threat indicated into the
day, Thursday. About this time, the antecedent conditions may be
primed for excessive rainfall - especially over our northwest
half. This is pertinent as most models and ensembles stall the
front over the area - just to our northwest as a focusing
mechanism for more rounds of showers and storms right on through
Sunday. For this reason WPC has outlooked much of our area with a
slight risk of excessive rain on Thursday and Friday with more
concerns following into the weekend. Given the model agreement on
this extreme event that we will be on the fringes of, an extended
flood watch (though Sunday morning) has been issued for northwest
parts of the JKL CWA with the potential for expansion southeast
should the threat trend that way.
Otherwise, warmer than normal daytime temperatures can be
expected through Saturday along with very mild nights. Cooler
conditions are anticipated for Sunday and Monday as the upper and
sfc patterns become unstuck and we see a change in air mass.
The changes to the NBM starting point consisted primarily of
lowering dewpoints a tad for Wednesday afternoon and beefing up
the winds. Adjusted the PoPs mainly for peak threat timing at an
hourly resolution.
&&
.AVIATION...(For the 18Z TAFS through 18Z Tuesday afternoon)
ISSUED AT 220 PM EDT MON MAR 31 2025
As a cold front passes through the area this afternoon, the lower
levels should saturate enough that a mix of IFR and MVFR
conditions will prevail into the evening and beyond for most
places with some light rain or drizzle early. Look for some
clearing and improving to VFR CIGs working west to east late
tonight into Tuesday morning. South to southwest winds of up to 10
kts ahead of the front will become west and then northwesterly
behind it with sustained winds reaching around 10 kts late this
afternoon before diminishing to ~ 5 kts or less through the
remainder of the period.
&&
.JKL WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
Flood Watch from Wednesday evening through Sunday morning for
KYZ044-050>052-058>060-068-069-079-080-083-084-104-106>109-111-
112-114.
&&
$$
SHORT TERM...GREIF
LONG TERM...GREIF
AVIATION...CMC/GREIF
Source:
JKL issues Area Forecast Discussion (AFD) at Mar 31, 5:55 PM EDT---------------
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