Area Forecast Discussion
Issued by NWS Paducah, KY

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405
FXUS63 KPAH 150615
AFDPAH

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Paducah KY
115 AM CDT Tue Jul 15 2025

.KEY MESSAGES...

- Isolated to scattered showers and thunderstorms will continue
  each afternoon for the next week. The strongest storms may
  pose an isolated threat of damaging winds. Heavy rainfall will
  accompany all storms with at least an isolated threat for
  flash flooding.

- Heat indices will climb into the triple digits and possibly
  exceed advisory threshold throughout the region Wednesday
  through the weekend.

&&

.DISCUSSION...
Issued at 115 AM CDT Tue Jul 15 2025

The synoptic situation looks very little changed from 24 hours
ago (or for that matter 3-4 days ago). Broad/weak troughing
over the western plains feeds into a 40-50 kt west southwesterly
jet "max" over MO/IL/IN/OH this morning. To the south of that
feature (including the quad-state region) sits a humid Gulf
driven soup with column PWAT values of 2.1 to 2.2 inches and
surface dewpoints in the mid 70s. Observed and model soundings
support another day of scattered to locally numerous showers and
thunderstorms later this afternoon and diminishing this
evening. Severe potential remains limited but local downbursts
remain possible and exceptionally efficient rainfall rates with
warm cloud layer depths over 13,000 ft in 2.2 inch PWAT will
make flooding possible anywhere storms persist more than about
30 minutes given our ground conditions.

Wednesday a shortwave trough begins to eject off the Rockies
over the high plains but probably too far away to influence our
weather much. Expect another day of scattered showers and storms
with downburst/efficient rain potential.

Thursday that trough gets a little closer as it begins to be
absorbed in the broader polar jet over the Great Lakes region -
so we could see a little bit better coverage. A surface front
also looks to work close to, but probably staying north of, the
area Thursday evening. Deterministic and ensemble guidance has
dewpoints 74-78 during this period which pushes heat index
values close to advisory criteria and it remains possible,
particularly Thursday or Friday, we will hit that threshold if
we end up with a little less cloud cover/rainfall coverage.
Deterministic ECMWF keeps the jet max far enough north Friday to
perhaps give us a little less thunder coverage, but the GFS
keeps it close enough to keep thunder going through the weekend.

Monday is the first glimpse of enough ridging building in aloft
to suppress convection a little but we still have precip
chances. I guess at least the good fortune is there aren`t any
organized synoptic scale systems interacting with this juicy air
that give us a clear cut flash flood/severe risk, or not strong
enough subsidence to give us a clean heat danger situation, but
it won`t take a lot of nudging either way to get into that
territory for a day or two.


&&

.AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z WEDNESDAY/...
Issued at 1138 PM CDT Mon Jul 14 2025

Main aviation concerns overnight will be MVFR and possibly IFR
cigs/visby restrictions with higher confidence at CGI and MVN.
VFR returns by mid morning. Additional convection is
anticipated Tuesday with afternoon mention at all terminals.
Southwesterly winds expected on Tuesday upwards of 5-7 knots.

&&

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

&&

$$

DISCUSSION...JGG
AVIATION...AD