textproduct: Paducah

KEY MESSAGES

- Widespread showers and thunderstorms will move through the area this afternoon through late tonight. A few strong to severe storms are possible mainly west of the Mississippi River. - Dry but mild conditions are expected Wednesday and Thursday.

- A cool down back to typical late fall temperatures is forecast Friday and into early next week, along with continued dry conditions.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 1241 PM CST Tue Nov 3 2026

Main focus today is the impending convective potential. Modified observed and model forecast soundings show instability is extremely limited currently, with a small unstable zone just above the surface boundary layer. Large scale jet-level ascent is approaching from the west but will have a lot of work to do to steepen lapse rates in the 1.8" PWAT airmass that originated in an east Pacific tropical cyclone. The air advecting into the area currently on these gusty south to southeast winds is also pretty homogeneous to what we already have in place although some insolation is warming it up. This heating though is having the effect of mixing lower dewpoints in. Richer low level moisture is present in eastern Arkansas and surface winds shift around to the south southwest just ahead of the approaching front/convective line that is modeled by available CAMS.

HRRR and RRFS1 average out to about 80 J/kg of entrainment factored MLCAPE in the 18 and 15z runs even with that slight uptick in moisture/instability. Shear is quite good as this area moves through with deep layer at about 50 kts or so and 0-1km shear line parallel at about 22-25 kts. If we can get enough instability for surface-based convection there would be a wind and QLCS tornado threat. Based on the timing of solar heating/advection and the trough it still looks like southeast Missouri has the best chance to overachieve on instability and yield some threat. Although the most likely outcome for now looks like a weaker partially elevated line of convection or heavy showers that passes fairly harmlessly. I'd say right now about a 15-20% chance for a warning or two to be necessary in SEMO and maybe 5-10% elsewhere. Areas of light to moderate rain look to follow any convection. PWATs/rainfall efficiency should be high but the intensity and duration of convection for now still looks to limit flood potential.

Cold front behind all this comes through tonight cooling us off a little. Another cold front is then progged for Friday morning that cools us off even further and give us weekend lows close to freezing. Moisture/rainfall potential with this second front still appears low.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z WEDNESDAY/

Issued at 1122 AM CST Tue Nov 3 2026

Gusty winds will continue for the rest of the day. An MVFR ceiling is moving in from west to east and should continue to do so covering the entire area by 22-23z. A line of convection looks reasonably likely in the late afternoon and evening with strong convection possible. It should be followed by a couple hours of stratiform rain which will be followed a few hours later by a modest cold front that will shift the winds more westerly. Prevailing conditions are mostly expected to be MVFR with expectations of IFR invof convection.

PAH WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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