textproduct: Paducah

KEY MESSAGES

- Temperatures are expected (90-100% chance) to remain below freezing today before warming to near or just above freezing for Tuesday.

- Very cold wind chill reading in the single digits to near zero will continue through Tuesday morning. In fact, wind chill readings may drop to -5 degrees (50-60% chance) in a few locations along and north of the I-64 corridor early this morning.

- Elevated fire weather conditions expected today through Tuesday with relative humidity values dropping into the 20%-30% range along with continued drought and gust winds.

- Models continue to struggle on the details on next weekend's wintry system. They have come into better agreement with a colder solution; however, exactly where the axis of wintry precipitation occurs will continue to shift over the next few days. Stay tuned for details!!

DISCUSSION

Issued at 218 AM CST Mon Jan 19 2026

High temperatures will remain well below freezing (in the 20s) today before moderating a bit on Tuesday. Lows will be quite cold, dropping into the low teens and single digits above zero tonight into Tuesday morning. Wind chill readings will drop into the low single digits above zero through Tuesday morning!! In fact there is about a 50-60% chance of seeing wind chill readings drop to -5F along and north of the I-64 corridor early this morning.

Very dry air in place, continued drought conditions along with gusty winds will lead to elevated fire weather conditions each afternoon through Tuesday.

A brief warm up is expected for Wednesday, along with a rain/snow mixture Wednesday morning before transitioning to rain by early afternoon. No accumulation or impacts are expected on Wednesday. Temperatures are forecast to warm into the mid to upper 40s.

Models are in somewhat better agreement that a sprawling/strong surface high pressure system will build across the northern Plains and upper Midwest Thursday through Saturday as troughing lingers over the eastern CONUS. That high pressure system and a cold front would be the main reasons for colder air to continue filtering south into the Quad State, but it would also bring in drier air...likely resulting in a sharp gradient in precipitation amounts with northward extent. Exactly where the moisture and cold air overlap the best will be where the significant winter system sets up, but pinning that down right now is nearly impossible until the system is sampled better. It is looking like some snow will fall across the Quad State later Friday into the weekend, but guidance varies widely on amounts and placement. That goes from model to model and run to run continuity in the deterministic models.

Ensemble guidance (EC-AIFS/EC/GFS/Canadian Ensembles) shows better continuity, bringing some snow to much of the Quad State, but those even had wide spreads in multiple surface/upper-level parameters for the weekend. All that is to say, there is a much stronger trend toward the colder solution with this update and the consensus for a winter storm is in the guidance, but details are very tough to settle on at this point. Yes, there is some guidance showing a lot of snow for the area, but there is also some guidance showing very little. About the best I can give from the ensembles is about a 50-60% chance of seeing around an inch of snow. Even that is probably too much detail this early, but worth mentioning as it may result in at least minor travel impacts toward the weekend. Stay tuned as we fine-tune the forecast and become comfortable talking about amounts over the next few days.

AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z TUESDAY/

Issued at 516 AM CST Mon Jan 19 2026

Gusty winds and a wind shift to the northwest will be the biggest concerns with this TAF issuance. Wind gusts may approach or exceed 20kts at times today before diminishing this evening and overnight. Some mid to high clouds will filter in from the west this afternoon; however, ceilings and visibilities are expected to remain VFR.

PAH WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

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