textproduct: Paducah

KEY MESSAGES

- Numerous showers and scattered thunderstorms will spread southeast across the entire region Monday night into Tuesday morning, with 80-100% chances Tuesday into Tuesday evening.

- Chances (30% north to 60-70% southeast) of showers will linger into Wednesday, with a few thunderstorms still possible near the Missouri/Arkansas and Kentucky/Tennessee borders, then showers will end from northwest to southeast Wednesday night.

- Rainfall amounts hold fairly steady, with the latest forecast amounts mostly in the one to one and three quarters of an inch range. Chances of greater than an inch are 60-80%, and greater than 2 inches are 15-40%.

UPDATE

Issued at 642 PM CDT Mon May 4 2026

Updated Aviation discussion for the 00z TAF issuance.

DISCUSSION

Issued at 114 PM CDT Mon May 4 2026

Mostly sunny, breezy, and warm across the area today. A few showers/thunderstorms are bubbling up to the northwest mainly on an area of warm air advection and elevated instability. They are struggling to make their way southeast owing to weak forcing and very dry air both at the surface and in the 850-700mb level. Advective processes could change that in the late afternoon mainly around Mt. Vernon, IL but based on downstream soundings it looks like precip will hold off for now until the main storm system gets closer.

The leading edge of better low-level warm air advection approaches by daybreak Tuesday. Jet-level ascent is muted with mostly a zonal 120-130 kt flow from the Gulf to the Great Lakes. Rain chances ramp up there and increase through the day as a surface cold front slowly creeps in from the northwest. Surface dewpoints try to break above 60 by the late afternoon which seems reasonable looking at downstream obs in Texas.

The increase in column moisture is collocated with fairly poor mid-level lapse rates, insolation should be limited by heavy cloud cover, theta-e advection is modest at best, and rainfall should also provide some cooling through the day. This should result in minimal boundary layer instability. The best chance for destabilization is as usual in the late afternoon and there is good deep layer and modestly supportive low level shear for some wind/tornado threat but it really looks too stable for now for that to be much of a factor. QPFs are pretty consistent with better than even chances to get over an inch of rain in most of the area.

We stay cool for a couple of days following FROPA before returning to seasonable conditions. A broader/stronger shortwave produces another front and rain/storm chance early next week. The short duration between waves however lead to a very short duration of moisture return and for now at least surface-based instability appears limited.

AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z WEDNESDAY/

Issued at 642 PM CDT Mon May 4 2026

Low confidence TAF forecast with unclear signals for convection evolution overnight. Current thinking is the most of the area will be dry until the 11-16z window, but did include a PROB30 TSRA group at MVN between 02-04z in case convection firing near STL gets close. After 11-16z, widespread showers with embedded thunder will move into the region as a stationary boundary becomes centered over the region. Used the HREF to time out PROB30 thunder windows. Otherwise, steady rain will bring cigs lowering to IFR by the afternoon with MVFR vsbys. Winds will be generally steady from the S to SW around 8-12 kts.

PAH WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

IL...Lake Wind Advisory until 8 PM CDT this evening for ILZ075>078- 080>094. MO...Lake Wind Advisory until 8 PM CDT this evening for MOZ076-086- 087-100-107>112-114. IN...Lake Wind Advisory until 8 PM CDT /9 PM EDT/ this evening for INZ081-082-085>088. KY...Lake Wind Advisory until 8 PM CDT this evening for KYZ001>022.