438
FXUS63 KPAH 161914
AFDPAH

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Paducah KY
214 PM CDT Thu Oct 16 2025

.KEY MESSAGES...

- Quiet and seasonably warm conditions will condition today
  through the rest of the day.

- A robust fall storm system will bring showers and
  thunderstorms to the region, mainly Saturday afternoon into
  late Saturday night. A few of the storms could reach severe
  levels, but there are limiting factors.

- Another disturbance will bring renewed modest rain and
  thunderstorm chances on Tuesday.

&&

.DISCUSSION...
Issued at 214 PM CDT Thu Oct 16 2025

Most of the focus of the day is on Saturday`s
front/thunderstorms. The large closed low and troughing that
stretches from the Front Range of the Rockies off the Pacific
coast gets shunted eastward by a jet max moving onto the Pacific
coast over the next few days. A closed low over south Texas gets
caught up ahead of this big trough and moves overhead tomorrow.
This trough has no moisture to work with and should pass without
much ado, but it will shift our surface flow to the southwest
and we will begin advecting richer moisture into the area from
Texas where dewpoints are 65-70 F.

The polar and subtropical jets phase Saturday morning over the
TX/OK panhandle which builds momentum to the east of the trough
and helps keep it going as flow east of the trough at 250
increases to about 130-140 kt with sharply diffluent flow to the
southeast of the jet. This should result in a lot of large
scale lift over the quad-state from about 21z on. It would also
support strong surface pressure falls, but the thermal gradients
from sfc-500mb or so seem a little too weak to really get a low
cranked up. Nevertheless 850mb flow does pick up to 35-45 kt by
00z or so with dewpoints in the mid 60s. All guidance has been
consistent on showing antecedent and advected drier air aloft
mixing down in the afternoon, which keeps our dewpoints from
really taking off. In this case I do not think its a situation
of global models overmixing, it makes sense there would be a
deep mixed layer and there definitely will be some drier air
aloft given the short moisture return interval (really only
about 18-24 hours). The overall trend has been for this system
to steadily get slower congealing peak lift/thunderstorm
potential about 22-03z over most of the area. Given the number
of large outdoor events planned put considerable attention to
the PoPs temporally as it does look like a fairly quiet morning
and early afternoon gives way to a stormy late afternoon and
evening. MLCAPEs remain limited due to the deep mixing only
yielding about 200-400 J/kg MLCAPE, and that has been very
consistent across all models and run to run for the last several
days. 0-1km shear/hodographs are pretty good and deep layer
shear is supportive. Will need to watch for any trend in sharper
mid-level lapse rates or less mixing/higher surface dewpoints
that would result in stronger buoyancy.

So to try to un-nerdspeak all of that. Thunderstorms are going
to be a factor Saturday, but they do look to hold off later in
the day and into the evening which may help some of our outdoor
activities. However this also increases the time for heating to
build instability. We think moisture will decrease during the
afternoon enough to limit the severe weather potential but the
organizing shear is strong enough we absolutely will need to be
mindful and monitoring it, as a small increase in instability
would make for a pretty favorable wind damage setup with an
attendant tornado risk. It looks a little better than it did for
this 24 hours ago but it still is a pretty marginal setup
overall.

A robust cold front then sweeps in behind the front dropping our
temperatures and humidity and leading to a fairly cool breezy
day on Sunday. Another trough pushes through on Tuesday but it
does look quite moisture starved based on the short return
interval in the current guidance. ECMWF has been dry and the
GFS is trending that way.

 &&

.AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z FRIDAY/...
Issued at 1120 AM CDT Thu Oct 16 2025

VFR conditions with a moderate easterly breeze are anticipated
through the rest of the day. Overnight winds become calm and fog
and ground fog are expected at CGI and possibly PAH. Another
light to moderate east wind and VFR skies are forecast for
Friday.

&&

.PAH WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
IL...None.
MO...None.
IN...None.
KY...None.

&&

$$

DISCUSSION...JGG
AVIATION...JGG