Somerset, Kentucky 7 Day Weather Forecast

Wx Forecast - Wx Discussion - Wx Aviation

342
FXUS63 KJKL 230056
AFDJKL

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
National Weather Service Jackson KY
756 PM EST Sat Nov 22 2025

.KEY MESSAGES...

- Drier weather returns to the area through Monday afternoon.

- A series of frontal boundaries will move across the region
  between Monday night and Wednesday morning, leading to
  widespread rain chances on Tuesday.

- A colder, but drier, airmass will settle into the region for the
  beginning of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

&&

.UPDATE...
Issued at 756 PM EST SAT NOV 22 2025

Low clouds are breaking up in the far northwest part of the
forecast area presently, with the trend making its way slowly
southeast. Timing of the decrease in clouds is the main question.
The GFS seemed to have a better handle on this than the NAM early
this evening, but there is concern that the rate of progress
southeastward could slow over the terrain. Even so, have relied
more heavily on the hourly data from the GFS for the forecast
update, with clouds breaking up all the way to the VA border by
around 1 AM. With rain having occurred across the area and clouds
not breaking up until tonight, the wet ground with radiating and
no substantial mixing should lead to valley fog development
tonight. Confidence is lacking as to how widespread it will
become. Any fog will dissipate on Sunday morning.

&&

.SHORT TERM...(This evening through Sunday night)
Issued at 230 PM EST SAT NOV 22 2025

At current, remnant showers are occurring across Floyd, and Pike
counties. A boundary is apparent looking at visible satellite
imagery located along a line extending from Liberty east to
Hazard, and Pikeville. A cold front continues to move across the
state confirmed by looking at temperature and humidity fields from
state Mesonets. Cloud cover is starting to thin out north of
Fleming county and surrounding sites north of the area. Sky
conditions should improve heading into the evening, with high
pressure building into the area behind the cold front.
Temperatures tonight will fall into the upper 30s to low 40s,
with patchy to areas of fog.

Sunday, high pressure continues to build into the area, leading
to partly cloudy to mostly sunny conditions and temperatures in
the upper 50s to low 60s. To account for a good set up for deep
mixing tomorrow we`ve collaborated with neighboring offices to use
the 90th percentile for winds during the peak heating hours.
Also, have elected to use a blend of the 10th and 25th percentile
of the NBM for dew points. Sunday night, under mostly clear skies,
conditions will favor some ridge-valley splits, with lows in the
low 30s in sheltered valleys and hollow, with ridge-tops remaining
in the upper 30s. Fog will be possible again Sunday night,
however with time for the grounds to dry out some from yesterdays
rains, fog has been confined to the river valleys in the forecast.

.LONG TERM...(Monday through Saturday)
Issued at 511 PM EST Sat Nov 22 2025

While the daytime hours on Monday are forecast to remain dry, the
return of southerly surface flow and southwesterly winds aloft will
yield increasing amounts of warm/moist air advection to the column
by Monday evening. The ridging and surface high responsible for the
previous day`s drier weather will have shifted east by then, and a
shortwave midlevel trough is forecast to approach the region
overnight into Tuesday. At the surface, this initial disturbance
will be represented by a low pressure system lifting NE across the
Ohio River Valley, with an initial warm front and a trailing cold
front. However, forecast guidance continues to resolve the
deamplification of the parent features aloft and thus a weaker first
cold frontal passage. Models also agree that a stronger trough will
then dig into the Northern Plains and allow southerly/southwesterly
flow to continue into Wednesday. The stronger dynamics associated
with this second system will lead to a second, better-defined cold
front crossing the forecast area on Wednesday. That system`s surface
low will likely be occluding over the Northern Great Lakes in this
time frame, which would allow drier air to wrap around its backside
and into the Ohio River Valley by midweek. After this secondary
frontal passage, another surface high builds into the region and
remains in place for the first few days of the Thanksgiving holiday
weekend.

In sensible weather terms, these synoptics lead to increasing cloud
cover, increasing temperatures, and increasing rain chances over the
first couple of days in the long term forecast period. Expect a
North-South temperature gradient on Monday afternoon, with locations
south of the Mountain Parkway more likely to see highs in the 60s
than areas closer to Interstate 64. Further to the north, winds will
be slower to veer, and forecast highs accordingly remain in the 50s
there for one more day. More efficient warm air advection and
isentropic lift associated with the arrival of the warm front will
insulate Monday night`s lows. Temperatures are forecast to be 10 to
15 degrees warmer on Monday night than they were on Sunday night,
with widespread lows in the mid to upper 40s. This gives a head
start to Tuesday`s highs, and most of the area will be able to climb
into the mid/upper 60s on Tuesday afternoon ahead of the approaching
cold front. PoPs spread from west to east across the area late on
Monday night, then become more widespread by dawn on Tuesday
morning. Scattered to numerous rain showers will continue through
Tuesday night before the second/stronger boundary arrives on
Wednesday. Additional pre-frontal rain showers are possible on
Wednesday morning, but the forecast has generally trended drier for
this time frame. The intrusion of a dry slot will likely limit
rainfall rates and keep QPF light with the second boundary passage,
and the probability of widespread hazardous weather is low. A few
thunderstorms cannot be ruled out closer to the Tennessee state line
on Tuesday, where models resolve marginally higher amounts of likely-
elevated instability. The highest storm total rainfall accumulations
from Tuesday to Wednesday will likely come there in the Cumberland
River Basin, but these totals generally remain less than one inch.
Thus, widespread hydrological issues are not currently anticipated
in Eastern Kentucky.

Behind Wednesday`s frontal passage, surface winds will turn westerly
as northwesterly flow continues around the backside of longwave
troughing aloft. The resultant advection of a continental airmass
into the commonwealth will yield below-normal temperatures and drier
sensible weather for start of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
Thanksgiving day will begin with widespread AM lows below freezing,
and highs are only forecast to warm into the lower half of the 40s
that afternoon. Black Friday looks even cooler as CAA persists and
mid-level geopotential heights fall, with similar lows/highs before
temperatures bottom out in the lower 20s on Saturday morning. Model
solutions begin to diverge around then, but there are hints of an
embedded disturbance approaching from the NW late next weekend.
That system will have to work to overcome antecedent dry air and a
general warming trend across modeled 850mb temperatures to
produce much precipitation in our area, but slight chance PoPs re-
enter the forecast at the very end of the period. Timing and
evolution details remain highly uncertain, so interests are once
again encouraged once again not to read too far into any one
deterministic model run`s precipitation output in that time frame.

&&

.AVIATION...(For the 00Z TAFS through 00Z Monday evening)
ISSUED AT 756 PM EST SAT NOV 22 2025

The start of the period saw mainly VFR conditions near and north
of I-64, and mainly MVFR (due mainly to ceilings) south of that.
Ceilings are forecast to continue breaking up from northwest to
southeast tonight. Timing is the main question. The GFS seemed to
have a better handle on this than the NAM early this evening, but
there is concern that the rate of progress southeastward could
slow over the terrain. Even so, have relied more heavily on the
hourly data from the GFS for the forecast, with clouds breaking up
all the way to the VA border by around 1 AM. With rain having
occurred across the area and clouds not breaking up until tonight,
the wet ground with radiating and no substantial mixing should
lead to valley fog development tonight, with IFR or worse
conditions. There is uncertainty as to how widespread it will
become. At this point, have only used restrictions at KSME (with
tempo LIFR conditions), with MOS guidance not suggesting other
TAF sites will be affected. Fog will dissipate on Sunday morning,
with VFR conditions then lasting through the rest of the period.

&&

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

&&

$$

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