NWS: 2025 weather in review

The National Weather Service office in Paducah has crunched the numbers to look back at what kind of a year we had in 2025.

Overall, temperatures were close to normal. Paducah never hit 100 degrees or zero degrees in 2025. The highest temperature of the past year was 98 degrees on August 19 and September 14. It was the third year in a row that we avoided triple digits. 

The last 100 degree reading in Paducah was in 2022, when it happened on July 7. Before that, you have to go back to June of 2016 for the previous 100 degree day.

Paducah's coldest temperature last year was 1 degree on February 21. The last time Paducah fell to zero degrees was also in 2022, when it plummeted to -5 and -6 on December 21 and 22 during a major winter storm. Before that, it was zero degrees on the first two days of 2018. (Note: it did fall to zero in Cape Girardeau in 2025, all the way to -4 on February 20 and 21.)

Rainfall varied widely in different quadrants of the Quad State. Our regions's annual average rainfall is from 44 to 55 inches, but several communities far exceeded that in 2025. The wettest was Muhlenberg County with more than 73 inches. Other wet cities were Benton, Eddyville and Metropolis with over 67 inches; Mayfield 66 inches; Fulton 65 inches; and Calvert City more than 64 inches.

By contrast, most of southern Illinois and southeast Missouri were limited to just 40 to 49 inches of rain. Carbondale experienced its driest August on record. 

The bulk of the region's rain fell during one of our wettest starts to a year, especially April to June, causing farmers to do a lot of replanting. Then the spigot turned off in August and September, and much of the area was under severe to extreme drought.

When it rained, it stormed. In 2025, the National Weather Service issued 398 severe thunderstorm warnings in our area, compared to the annual average of 258. They issued 91 flash flood warnings (usual 53), and 151 tornado warnings, much above the annual average of 59. The large majority of severe weather was concentrated east of the lakes in Kentucky.

You can see the full NWS climate summary for 2025 here .


MAP: Total rainfall in 2025 at regional Mesonet locations.  (National Weather Service Paducah)