textproduct: Paducah

KEY MESSAGES

- Scattered light rain showers continue through early this morning.

- Dry and mild conditions are expected from the latter half of Thursday through Saturday. Temperatures will warm 10 to 15 degrees above normal.

- An unsettled weather pattern will bring a daily chance (40-60%) of light rain Sunday through Tuesday. Cold air pushing in from the north presents about a 10-20% chance of accumulating winter precipitation along the Interstate 64 corridor.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 1235 AM CST Thu Feb 26 2026

A weak shortwave is tracking southeast towards the area this morning. The peak of available ascent looks like it has moved to the southeast, but there is at least a little bit of lift available to squeeze out a shower or two through mid morning today. Lower and mid level clouds likely start to break up by midday providing a dry and relatively warm day with highs approaching 60s. The shortwave trough continues to dig slowly southeast through the period keeping us in an area of relative height rises through Friday with dry weather and warming temperatures. Friday and Saturday still look to feature highs in the upper 60s to low 70s.

A cold front pours in from the north Saturday night and Sunday morning with improving agreement on timing and the arrival of a much colder airmass. By Sunday night we sit near the right rear quadrant of a jet max over the Great Lakes with low-level frontogenetic forcing also pushing in from the south. The 00z GFS trended colder and further south overall with heaviest precip over western Kentucky and sub-freezing surface air making it down to close to the Ohio River. The 00z ECMWF is much drier and a little warmer with the relative lack of precip limiting wet-bulb cooling and how much frozen precip it spits out. In the deterministic output this appears to be a result of the GFS being weaker with a southern branch of jet-level flow working into the back of the parent trough which lets the right-rear quadrant work over a larger footprint and generate more precip. Ensemble members and means don't really provide much of a tiebreaker between the two except perhaps to be a little more towards the ECMWF camp. The GFS solution seems to be relying on a little more complex interaction to take place, perhaps making it slightly less likely, but the tendency for cold dense airmasses to overachieve in their southward extent of influence will have to be kept in mind. Right now I'd lean about 60% towards the warmer and drier solution with about a 10-15% chance of some degree of impactful winter precipitation across our northern counties given the sun angle, antecedent ground temperatures, and temperature of the source airmass.

Into early next week the trend for stronger troughiness over the intermountain west and a more amplified overall pattern continues. This gives us reasonably strong confidence in warmer temperatures but the precipitation chances are still a bit of a mess. The potential will exist for a warm front to establish over the area Wednesday or Thursday bringing rain and shower chances, but the GFS has that stay more diffuse until the lumbering western trough approaches later in the week.

AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z FRIDAY/

Issued at 917 PM CST Wed Feb 25 2026

MVFR cigs will continue to spread across the southern terminals overnight. Brief MVFR cigs are also possible Thursday morning at the northern terminals, but there is more uncertainty contingent on how much saturation occurs. It is also possible the cigs are mainly SCT with brief BKN intervals.

Rain shower chances will peak overnight with the highest chances at KPAH. Light east to northeast winds increase to 6-11 kts early Thursday morning. All terminals return to VFR by midday with mostly clear skies Thursday evening. Winds turn light & variable after sunset.

PAH WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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