textproduct: Paducah

KEY MESSAGES

- A potent disturbance will impact the area Saturday. The precipitation will begin as snow or a rain/snow mix in the morning before changing to all rain Saturday afternoon.

- Light snow accumulations are possible, particuarly across areas near Interstate 64 Saturday. Significant travel impacts remain but isolated impacts cannot be ruled out.

- Chilly, below normal temperatures will continue into early next week. Another system may bring additional chances for wintry precipitation Monday night into Tuesday, but forecast confidence remains low.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 1258 PM CST Thu Nov 27 2025

Main focus today remains on the Saturday system with a fairly strong shortwave trough spinning up a cyclone that passes to our northwest. A strong warm-advection and DCVA combination provide ample lift over surface air that is at or just above freezing but quite dry. Precip looks to begin in our western counties between midnight and 3 am or so Saturday morning, expanding eastward through sunrise and lasting until a cold front sweeps through in the afternoon.

This setup is somewhat climatologically unusual as the warm side of a cyclone is rarely the locale of wintry precip in the region, particularly in November. The system depends on wet- bulb, and perhaps dynamical cooling, aloft to generate snow/sleet in the morning changing over to rain during the day. Deterministic GFS runs are about 3 degrees too cold today with dewpoints and the overall current airmass, where the ECMWF is closer. Resultingly the ECMWF has a slightly faster changeover to rain as temperatures warm during the day. The challenges/concerns at the moment:

1) Snow in warm-sector/warm advection regime is a little unusual for us and makes us a touch skeptical despite the guidance. It would take very little overachieving of the warm advection compared to what is currently modeled to result in an all-rain event.

2) The lift is going to be fairly phased and strong which could result in stronger dynamical cooling aloft (which the deterministic GFS seems to show if you dig into 850-700 mb temps) as well as releasing some convective instability. If you get a pocket of pseudo-convective snow with high rates in the morning hours the potential for localized travel impacts will be there - on one of the busier travel days of the year. It looks like the potential is maximized for that north of our area, but it doesn't appear to be zero in our northwest.

3) With the warm-advection forecast aloft I think the potential for a little sleet mix-in is higher than currently modeled and that would eat at totals of course.

In all keeping the general message of the forecast intact with light snow accumulations possible across much of the area. The totals are a little lower than the previous cycle across parts of SEMO. Borderline advisory level snow is forecast across our northern counties and if there is sufficient snow for some degree of travel impact it will likely be along and north of a line from Perryville, MO northeastward to about Princeton, IN. It is too early/confidence is too low for an advisory right now but it is possible one will become necessary in the coming hours.

A deeper trough develops a storm system over the southeastern US Monday. This system generates precip, likely a mix of freezing rain and snow based on the current modeling, that might be sufficient for impacts over parts of southwestern Kentucky. The exact shape of the parent trough as it moves through has been shuffling a bit run-to-run and model-to-model and this will have a big impact on what, if anything, ultimately comes of it. A front then swoops through and keeps us in a below normal temperature regime for the remainder of the forecast period.

PAH WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

IL...None. MO...None. IN...None. KY...None.