textproduct: Paducah

KEY MESSAGES

- A few thundershowers may pop up this afternoon amid residual moisture.

- A significant severe weather episode remains possible/forecast on Monday.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 148 PM CDT Fri Apr 24 2026

This mornings band of decaying thunderstorms and trailing stratiform precip has mostly dissipated this afternoon across the region. A few deeper showers and developing thunderstorms are getting going over Christian/Todd Counties and there should be about 1000 J/kg of MLCAPE to work with for that activity although deeper organizing shear is extremely weak. A modest cold front then sweeps through behind this activity and should reduce humidity over the weekend, although the front stays somewhat within the vicinity so stray showers may fire up in the southern half of the CWA.

As has been the case for the last few days most of the analysis today has been on Monday. Overall a concerning severe weather setup still appears in place, perhaps shifted ever so slightly westward/slower, but otherwise a lot like it has looked for several days. It is concerning for tornadoes, damaging winds and hail.

Meteorological Details:

Synoptically a 110 kt west southwesterly polar/subtropical jet max works towards the central Plains Sunday. This pinches a sharp shortwave trough on the leading edge as it marches across the Plains which by Monday afternoon leads to strongly directionally diffluent flow from the mid-south to the western Great Lakes region. A ~995 mb sfc low tracks from southern Kansas into southern Wisconsin during the day and the low level height gradient tightens to produce 15-20 kt south to southwesterly surface winds and 40 to 50 kt 850mb winds. 12z deterministic GFS output have our surface winds a little more backed, but I think grid-scale feedback type issues are lowering sfc pressures along vigorous deep convection a little more than what is likely to occur. The ECMWF has hints of this too however. Looking at the 12z ECWMF jet profile the peak Q-vector convergence/DCVA might be just north of St. Louis, so I think it is possible that there are a little stronger low level pressure falls southeast of the parent sfc low that might lead to the isallobaric response necessary to get that extra little backing in the surface winds. Rich boundary level moisture is advected from the Gulf on the strong southwesterly winds and surface dewpoints are still modeled in the 67-71 degree range over much of the CWA. The GFS initiates vigorous convection over southcentral MO about 21z, and the ECMWF is slightly slower with that. A modest capping inversion remains present in model forecast soundings, presumably from a weak EML. This cap would be strong enough to mostly hold back surface based convection until peak heating. Mid-level lapse rates appear quite exceptional at 7.5 to even 8 degrees C/km. If you take the deterministic guidance at face value, over southeast Missouri you get about 3000-3500 J/kg of MLCAPE with 0-1m SRH 200-250 m2/s with large sweeping hodographs. The rapid changeover of large scale ascent from neutral to sharply positive might help support upscaling to linear features fairly quickly, but I am concerned the weak residual capping inversion might support supercells. This is still using global model level resolution, but it is a very concerning setup. Machine learning output and the Storm Prediction Center have been very consistent with this event as well and paint a higher level threat than your average spring severe event.

Potential limiting factors:

This is still modeling a modestly small feature (the peak diffluence/shortwave) at fairly long meteorological lead times and shifts in the intensity and area are absolutely still possible, and even likely. We could end up more in the right front (convergent) quadrant of the upper jet and struggle to have convection break out.

The "bullseye" of this event may end up being a fairly small geographic area that could vary. The strongest impacts could also vary significantly, we are forecasting 2-4 km scale processes 84 hours from now, lots could still happen.

We still haven't seen this with our increasingly high- performing/useful convection allowing models. Those run out to about 48 to 60 hours so we still have some time to wait for that. Having this degree of consistency/concern even 5 to 10 years ago on an event would have been unthinkable.

Sometimes the modeled mid-level lapse rates don't quite pan out

It's the weather, weird things happen and we can't see, measure, model or consider everything.

More concerning factors:

The model consistency has been very strong with this. High- impact events often carry a little higher degree of consistency and this may be one of those instances.

Dewpoints are very rich and that has been consistent.

Model mid-level lapse rates are exceptional.

Shear is very favorable for supercell tornadoes. It would also be supportive of QLCS tornadoes if more linear features develop.

One change from 12-24 hours ago is the ECMWF 12z is giving a little bit of a shortwave Tuesday that pulls some return flow back into the area. The ensembles generally favor a more progressive solution but we will need to watch that over the coming forecast cycles.

The rest of the week for now looks fairly dry and seasonable. Another system is somewhat inconsistently progged for Friday into the weekend. For now we kind of stay on the cool side of the boundary there but some rain/thunder may develop.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z SATURDAY/

Issued at 1153 AM CDT Fri Apr 24 2026

Rain and embedded showers are diminishing/decreasing in coverage through midday. Residual cloud cover will make redeveloping showers and thunderstorms a little harder to come by. The best chance will be from about EVV to HOP but can't completely be ruled out anywhere. VFR conditions are then forecast overnight and through Saturday morning.

PAH WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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