Somerset, Kentucky 7 Day Weather Forecast

Wx Forecast - Wx Discussion - Wx Aviation

836
FXUS63 KJKL 180200
AFDJKL

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
National Weather Service Jackson KY
900 PM EST Tue Feb 17 2026

.KEY MESSAGES...

-  A warming trend will last through Thursday, with some places
   potentially topping 70 degrees, especially Thursday.

-  The next likelihood of rain is Thursday and Thursday night,
   with a slight chance of thunderstorms in most of the area.
   Some storms could be strong to severe.

-  After a cold front passes early on Friday, colder air will
   arrive and last into next week. Snow showers are a possibility
   before the weekend is finished.

&&

.UPDATE...
Issued at 900 PM EST TUE FEB 17 2026

High clouds are very prominent and the sky cover has been
increased in tonight`s forecast. The clouds have not been effect
at preventing valley temperatures from dropping off. Some
locations were already below forecast lows early this evening. The
forecast has been updated for colder valley temps. However, still
thinking that the readings will level out and possibly turn
around overnight as lower clouds arrive.

&&

.SHORT TERM...(This evening through Wednesday night)
Issued at 258 PM EST TUE FEB 17 2026

An active west-southwesterly mid-level jet stream develops from the
Southwest CONUS through the Ohio Valley starting this evening, with
moderate to strong low-level warm advection contributing to much
above normal temperatures and increasing shower chances Wednesday
into Wednesday night.

A series of warm fronts, mainly aloft, moves east-northeast across
the area, with the first late this afternoon into the evening,
followed by another Wednesday morning. A low-level jet developing
tonight will help keep overnight lows in the 50s for most areas,
though a few upper 40s cannot be ruled out over far northeastern and
southeastern counties, especially in sheltered valleys. PWs will
also increase with the strong warm advection, especially as a mid-
level jet streak approaches the area. Cloud bases will lower during
the Wednesday morning period with isolated to widely scattered
showers possible, though widespread measurable precipitation looks
unlikely at this time.

The late afternoon through evening period Wednesday looks dry, with
more neutral advection briefly developing and a pronounced dry layer
moving across much of the Bluegrass State helping to cap any
potential shower development. Have thus lowered PoPs during this
time frame, though the NBM was already trending lower with this
forecast package.

Warm advection increases again overnight Wednesday night, especially
after midnight, with moisture increasing again from the south and
southwest supporting an increasing chance for showers. Lows will
again range in the 50 to 55 degree range.

.LONG TERM...(Thursday through Tuesday)
Issued at 600 PM EST Tue Feb 17 2026

An active weather pattern sets up over Eastern Kentucky for the
duration of the long term forecast period, with multiple
disturbances expected to traverse through a regime of quasi-zonal
flow aloft between Thursday and Sunday. At first, the forecast area
will be positioned firmly on the warm side of the resultant surface
low pressure systems. Temperatures will be much warmer than normal
at the beginning of the forecast period. This favors multiple rounds
of rain showers, and perhaps a few thunderstorms, in the forecast
for Thursday and Thursday night as the first system`s fronts move
through the commonwealth. A lull in activity appears possible on
Friday as this first system`s cold front comes to a crawl to the
south of the forecast area. Another low looks to develop along that
stalled boundary down in the Tennessee Valley on Saturday, but
models disagree on its exact evolution. It is generally expected to
move northeast, but its interaction with any shortwave perturbations
riding through the flow aloft remains uncertain. Confidence is lower
in the PoP forecast for Saturday as a result, but anything that
falls would be in liquid form. The cold air advection in the wake of
the first frontal passage does not look particularly vigorous, but
that looks to change as the second system evolves. Models agree that
much deeper troughing will dig into the Midwest on Sunday. As that
second system, subsequent subsequent shortwave disturbances, and
this troughing phase together at the end of the forecast period, a
much stronger cold air advection regime is expected to emerge. This
allows precipitation to change over to snow on Sunday, and snow
showers may linger into Monday amidst persistent NW flow and much
colder temperatures. Therefore, all of this activity is poised to
culminate in a significant pattern change.

When the period opens on Thursday morning, a warm front will be
lifting across the commonwealth. Ongoing WAA rain showers will move
east-northeast across the forecast area as that boundary moves
towards the Ohio River by Thursday afternoon. A rumble of thunder
cannot be completely ruled out with this AM activity, but the severe
weather risk appears low. Amongst the currently available pieces of
forecast guidance, instability parameters are relegated to a few
hundred J/kg of MUCAPE at best. Surface instability looks nil, so
any AM storms would likely be elevated. Some forecast guidance is
hinting at training cells and locally higher rainfall amounts
immediately ahead the boundary on Thursday morning. While mean PWATs
around 0.90 inches do not look particularly robust and the
overarching system looks progressive, the potential for training
will need to be monitored as this system enters the temporal range
of more high-resolution guidance.

Behind that warm front on Thursday afternoon, low level flow veers
further to the southwest and strengthens. The resultant warm air
advection will push highs towards the 70 degree mark, especially in
southern portions of the forecast area. Confidence is higher in some
degree of post-frontal clearing and diurnal mixing in locations
south of the Mountain Parkway, and KLOZ may make a run at its record
high of 72 if the sun comes out. Despite the low level warmth,
modeled soundings depict midlevel capping in the warm sector over
Southern Kentucky, with the best forcing displaced further to the
west closer to the I-65 corridor. Scattered convection may still try
to develop in the warm sector, but it will likely take frontal
forcing to get meaningful convection out of this set-up. Any
residual boundaries from the AM round of showers could serve as a
mesoscale focal point for afternoon convection, but this would
likely set up further to the north, where the degree of clearing and
low-level destabilization remains uncertain. Thus, any severe risk
with Thursday afternoon`s activity would be conditional, and that
activity would likely be both low-topped and more isolated/scattered
in nature.

The system`s cold front will approach the area from the northwest on
Thursday night. Frontal forcing will result in increasing convective
coverage upstream of the forecast area, but the loss of daylight
will relegate instability parameters to just a couple hundred J/kg
of CAPE. Favorable wind profiles will yield 30+ knots of effective
bulk shear, and models move a 40-45 knot southwesterly LLJ into the
forecast area after dark. As a result, strong to severe storms
cannot be ruled out across the northwestern half of the forecast
area. The ECMWF Extreme Forecast Index data suggests that CAPE/shear
profiles may be marginally supportive for strong to severe storms
after 00z Friday, with readings generally between 0.7-0.9 range
across the area. In simple terms, this means that many ensemble
members show favorable parameter spacing for potentially organized
thunderstorms. However, there is not a significant Shift of Tails
alongside that data. This indicates that Thursday night`s storms are
unlikely to be an usual/rare/extreme severe weather event. Rather,
it looks to be a typical transition season set-up in which
weakening storms need to be monitored for an isolated case of
damaging winds or a spin-up tornado as they approach the JKL CWA.
Given all of the above, the Storm Prediction Center has maintained
the Marginal (Level 1/5) Severe Weather Outlook for portions of the
forecast area northwest of a line stretching from Monticello to
London, Jackson, and Paintsville. A Slight Risk (Level 2/5) clips
western Montgomery, Bath, and Fleming Counties up in the Bluegrass
region, largely due to their closer proximity to the stronger
upstream activity.

Rain chances taper off from NW to SE as FROPA occurs on Friday
morning, with some clearing expected by Friday afternoon as a
flattened and weak postfrontal high budges into the Ohio River
Valley. The frontal boundary is expected to stall out to the south
of the forecast area as it is abandoned by its upper level support,
which reduces the efficacy of the post-frontal cold air advection.
Thus, Friday`s temps are likely to take the form of a NW-SE
gradient, with mid 50s further to the north/west and low-mid 60s
further south/east.

As hinted at in the opening paragraph, Saturday`s precipitation
forecast is shrouded in forecast uncertainty. As another low
pressure system develops in the baroclinic zone along the stalled
boundary to our south, another shortwave perturbation ejects out of
the Ozarks. The medium-range forecast guidance handles the
interaction between these features quite differently, so PoPs were
categorically limited to chance values (below 55%) on Saturday. The
best chances will likely come in locations closer to the Tennessee
and Virginia state lines; expect future NBM runs to trend in this
direction. Any precipitation that falls on Saturday would do so as
rain given forecast temperatures generally in the 50s, but a
changeover to snow looks likely on Sunday as temps dip into the 30s.
The approach of deeper troughing from the northwest will introduce
much colder air into the atmospheric column headed into early next
week, with ensemble mean 850mb temps dropping below 0 on Sunday
morning and then below -10 on Monday morning. At the surface, the
low pressure system will have ejected to the other side of the
Appalachians and then up the Eastern Seaboard, placing the forecast
area in a multi-day regime of vertically stacked NW flow. Favorable
cyclonic vorticity advection and orographic lift should work
together to produce snow showers on Sunday and Monday, and some of
those showers could be more vigorous on Sunday. The 12z GFS resolves
snow squall parameters between 1.5 and 2.5 in Eastern Therefore, all
of this activity is poised to culminate in a pattern change, with
temperatures returning to near-normal, late-winter values for the
end of February. Kentucky on Sunday afternoon. Despite marginal
ground temps, minor accumulations cannot be ruled out in locations
that experience higher snowfall rates.

The cold continues into Monday, when highs will likely struggle
to climb out of the mid 30s amidst persistent NW flow and
continued light snow showers/flurries east of the Pottsville
Escarpment and along the higher terrain in SE KY. Drier
continental high pressure returns at the very end of the period on
Monday night, and the resultant clearing allows Monday night`s
lows to radiationally cool to lower than normal values in the
teens (valleys) and lower 20s (ridgetops). This is quite the
departure (50+ degrees) from the near-record forecast high
temperatures at the start of the long term period, and the CPC
expects temperatures to remain closer to near-normal, late-winter
values through February 27th.

&&

.AVIATION...(For the 00Z TAFS through 00Z Thursday evening)
ISSUED AT 801 PM EST TUE FEB 17 2026

VFR conditions with ceilings of 15-20K ft AGL prevailed at the
start of the period. MVFR ceilings are forecast to develop from
northwest to southeast overnight and early Friday. This is
followed by occasional drizzle developing on Friday morning. The
scenario then lasts through the rest of the day, with a potential
for some spotty IFR ceilings also.

&&

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

&&

$$

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