textproduct: Paducah

KEY MESSAGES

- Very cold polar airmass continues to pour into the region with gusty northwest winds. Wind chills are and will likely stay mostly below zero for the next 12-15 hours. A Cold Weather Advisory is in place.

- The cold is short lived as temperatures moderate mid week and come up to the 50s Wednesday and possibly a few 60s on Thursday.

- Rain chances come back into the forecast Wednesday night into Thursday as showers and potentially even thunderstorms.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 1238 AM CST Sun Dec 14 2025

Forecast remains largely on track this morning. Apparent temperatures are falling to around 0 to -5 with northwest winds gusting to about 20 mph as temperatures work towards the single digits. A bitterly cold morning will follow with maximum temperatures struggling and probably mostly failing to reach 20 degrees. This is about 30 degrees below normal for max Ts.

Very good radiational cooling conditions are then expected tonight with particularly dry conditions at the surface. Min temps remain in the single digits and may go lower in the northeastern part of the CWA where the 1040 mb high is projected to sit.

We then transition to something entirely different for the remainder of the week as ridging sets up to our southeast with steadily warmer and more moist southwest flow at the surface. GFS/ECMWF solutions are a little better aligned on a fairly sharp trough digging into the midwest on Thursday with a 988-990mb sfc low forming up over northwest Illinois ahead of it. This leads to strong/gusty winds on Thursday and reasonably good moisture/warm air advection leading to a good chance of showers and probably thunderstorms. The front that just moved through here slams into the Gulf and scours out moisture which helps limit currently modeled moisture return. 850 mb winds are 55-65 kts though so if moisture return overachieves and a little stronger instability builds in will have to watch for a severe threat. CSU-MLP does show a little bit of a blip over our area. Taking just the deterministic ECMWF/GFS output it looks like the risk would increase from west to east, but details of the timing and such will likely change in the coming days. Both global models then do basically the same thing again Sunday with a weaker/broader shortwave trough. The risk still probably peaks to our east using the raw output this morning however.

Highs by the end of the week work into the low 60s as we go from 30 degrees below normal today to 10-15 degrees above normal by Thursday.

AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z MONDAY/

Issued at 508 AM CST Sun Dec 14 2025

VFR conditions are expected at most terminals through the morning. Occasional broken skies at 1000 ft with light snow have been reported at Evansville, this appears to be the result of heat/moisture from a powerplant in Gibson County into the extremely cold and dry airmass. Any degree of wind shift should result in a return to clear skies. Winds will slowly decrease in speed and shift northeasterly before becoming calm overnight tonight.

PAH WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

IL...Cold Weather Advisory until noon CST today for ILZ075>078- 080>094. MO...Cold Weather Advisory until noon CST today for MOZ076-086-087- 110>112-114. IN...Cold Weather Advisory until noon CST /1 PM EST/ today for INZ081-082-085>088. KY...Cold Weather Advisory until noon CST today for KYZ001>022.