700 FXUS63 KPAH 101948 AFDPAH Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Paducah KY 248 PM CDT Sun Mar 10 2024 .KEY MESSAGES... - Abundant sunshine and a warming trend will open the work week. Temperatures will near 70 degrees for highs by Tuesday. - A weak disturbance will bring a slight chance of light rain showers Tuesday night into Wednesday morning. - Another, stronger disturbance will bring our next chance of widespread showers and thunderstorms, mainly from Thursday afternoon through Friday morning. && .DISCUSSION... Issued at 247 PM CDT Sun Mar 10 2024 Tonight through Wednesday night...Surface analysis shows a 1024 mb area of high pressure settling eastward from the central Great Plains into the Mid-South. This feature will be the primary driver of the sensible weather pattern through the first half of the work week. With this anticyclone overhead, strong subsidence will bring clear skies and light or calm winds tonight. This will allow temperatures to fall into the lower to middle 30s for lows. The NBM ensemble gives a 60-90% chance of subfreezing low temperatures again, mainly over the EVV Tri- State, with much lower odds further south and west. On Monday and Tuesday, the surface high will begin to shift east of the region towards the Mid-Atlantic. This will bring increasing southwest surface flow, which will gradually advect increasing amounts of warmth and moisture into the forecast area. The atmospheric column as a whole will also warm up during this period as mid-level ridging builds over the region. This will result in a significant warming trend. NBM ensembles depict a 60-100% chance from east to west, respectively, of high temperatures exceeding 60 degrees Monday. Even warmer temperatures are forecast Tuesday and Wednesday, with 70-90% chances of high temperatures greater than 65 degrees Tuesday and similar odds of highs greater than 70 degrees Wednesday! We do have a small chance of light rain showers Tuesday night into Wednesday, as a weak inverted trough passes through the region. The main impacts will likely be an increase in cloud cover during this period, but cannot completely rule out isolated light rain. Thursday through Saturday night...A transition to a period of more unsettled weather is expected for the second half of the week. The long-range ensemble mean (LREF) continues to show a deep longwave trough dipping south from Canada into the central and southern Rocky Mountains Wednesday into Thursday. Surface cyclogenesis then commences near the OK/TX Panhandle area, with the surface low deepening to about 1008-1012 mb as it passes through the Ohio Valley Friday through Saturday. The ensemble guidance has shown a slightly more southerly trend with the path of the surface low, which would keep the more unstable/sheared environment capable of producing organized convection confined south of the forecast area. Therefore, thinking that the risk for severe thunderstorms locally has trended down a bit from previous forecasts. However, there still looks to plenty of precipitation chances for the region, beginning Thursday as the associated surface warm front lifts into the region and again Thursday night into Friday morning as the cold front passes. As the region will be in the warm sector during much of the day Thursday, high temperatures will soar into the lower to middle 70s. Ensemble guidance has shown a trend towards greater precipitable water values advecting into the region, which would allow for more efficient rainfall production and thus higher totals. The latest WPC guidance does have an uptick from earlier guidance in QPF Thursday afternoon through Saturday morning, ranging from 0.50" along Interstate 64 to 1.50" along the KY/TN border. Given our antecedent dry conditions, flooding concerns will likely not be an issue, unless there is another significant jump in QPF in future forecasts. For next weekend, forecast confidence drops considerably, there is poor agreement amongst the model guidance regarding the evolution of the late week surface low. Some guidance cuts off this feature over the Mid-Atlantic and Interior Northeast CONUS, bringing some continued cloud cover and light rain chances through next weekend, especially in the eastern parts of the forecast area in southeast IN and the KY Pennyrile. Other guidance is more progressive and thus dries us out fairly quickly. Confidence is higher that the region will see a cool down in temperatures, with the NBM ensemble showing a 50-80% chance of high temperatures below 65 degrees on Friday and Saturday. && .AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z MONDAY/... Issued at 1208 PM CDT Sun Mar 10 2024 The TAFs are VFR. As high pressure becomes centered over the region, ongoing steady NW winds at 9-12 kts with gusts up to 20 kts at EVV and OWB will become light and variable overnight. After 14z Monday, winds will pick up from the southwest at AOA 5-7 kts. Clear skies are forecast through the entire forecast period. && .PAH WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... IL...None. MO...None. IN...None. KY...None. && $$ DISCUSSION...DWS AVIATION...DWS