textproduct: Paducah

KEY MESSAGES

- Rain and thunderstorms are expected (80+% chance) Sunday evening. There is a risk for severe thunderstorms, with damaging winds and isolated tornadoes the main threat.

- Very strong, gusty south winds Sunday afternoon and evening will shift to the west then northwest Sunday night through Monday. Sustained winds may be as high as 20-25 mph with gusts likely to exceed 40 mph outside of any thunderstorm activity.

- Rain will transition to snow Sunday night into Monday morning as much colder air filters into the area. There is roughly a 30-50% chance of seeing at least a half inch of snow for much of the area, mainly on grassy/elevated areas.

- Cold temperatures are expected to linger for Monday and Tuesday with highs in the 30s and lows in the 20s or colder.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 1238 PM CDT Fri Mar 13 2026

A spiraling surface low centered over Michigan continues to move to the east this afternoon. Local pressure gradients are starting to relax and gusts settle down into a more steady west wind today with highs working towards the middle 60s under high overcast. Winds then should shift back to the south to southeast tomorrow morning in response to our main system of interest starting to emerge off the northern Rocky Mountains.

At this point a 160-180 kt jet max digs into the back of a shortwave trough on the eastern front of the Rocky Mountains and by Sunday night digs into a large, powerful, climatologically anomalous U-shaped trough from the southwestern Gulf to south central Canada. A strong surface low (980-985mb) then deepens into the western Great Lakes region. This trough continues to dig southeastward through Monday morning causing large height falls/DCVA and shoving a very powerful cold front through the region. The lower level height/pressure gradient becomes extremely tight with surface sustained winds on the order of 20-25 kts, and 850mb winds projected as high as 65-70 kts. The Gulf is mostly worked over from recent frontal passages so moisture return is somewhat limited. Dewpoints on most model (deterministic and ensemble) projections ahead of the front build to 55 to 58 degrees, with values up to around 60 poking into southeast Missouri Sunday evening. Mid-level lapse rates become quite steep at 7-7.5 C/km. MLCAPE values range between about 200 and 400 J/kg just ahead of the front.

The shear parameter space will be exceptional for this event. Both GFS and NAM projections set the height gradient up in a way that the peak 850mb winds are actually located essentially right ahead of the front. This zone will be strongly forced and is where any convection that does get going would be most likely to form. I am not yet fully convinced convection will form. However I am increasingly concerned it will, amid strong and sharp large scale ascent in the highly sheared environment. Sub-500mb RH should increase rapidly just ahead of the front. This would serve to limit updraft entrainment and subsequent parcel stabilization, which sometimes acts to appear to 'shear apart' updrafts in the strong wind field. For now it still reminds me of 3.3.2023 but with the low centered further north away from the area and a few mb weaker, but dewpoints are 5 to 6 degrees higher. That day, as it appears this one could, featured a couple of EF2 caliber QLCS tornadoes and fairly widespread damaging wind in a strongly forced convective line. If moisture return ends up less than currently modeled it might be sufficient to limit MLCAPE to the point we don't see this play out. Forthcoming high-res CAM guidance may prove helpful in further qualifying and quantifying the overall risk.

What remains high confidence is very strong winds with gusts over 40 mph ahead and behind the front. I think there is a window for 60 mph gusts just behind the front as we pick up +12 mb or so of sfc pressure in just a few hours on most model guidance. Will be examining higher res guidance that should start to come in range very shortly to see if it starts paining something to that effect.

Sharply colder air then slams into the area as lingering troughing/DCVA and low level flow curvature keeps at least some precip generated through Monday morning. We still have light snowfall accumulations in the forecast. The antecedent ground temperatures will probably buy us some help in mitigating accums, but 40 mph wind advecting 26 degree air while precip is falling will likely have a stark and rapid impact on the temperature of the immediate surface, and any higher rate snow could pile up enough to at least briefly cause slick spots. Highs Monday will be in the low to mid 30s (20 to 25 degrees below normal) with highs in the upper teens to low 20s. A modest persistent northwest wind will likely lead to single digit wind chills. Another cold day is forecast Tuesday before the flow turns back around to the southwest and we start to warm back up closer to normal. A fairly strong upper level ridge then tries to establish that may set us back up for a period of above normal temperatures into late next week.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z SUNDAY/

Issued at 1114 PM CDT Fri Mar 13 2026

Light north to northeast winds increase to 10-12 kts out of the southeast on Saturday. A few gusts around 16-19 kts are possible at the western terminals in the afternoon. Otherwise, FEW-SCT high level clouds give way to a FEW cu around 3-4 kft AGL Saturday afternoon. Southeast to south winds diminish to 6-10 kts after sunset. VFR conditions are progged for the entire TAF period.

PAH WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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