Super Bowl Update

PADUCAH, Ky. (NWS) ― Improvements to three National Weather Service Doppler radars which cover a large portion the Tri-State area will get underway starting this coming week.

The Paducah, Ky. Doppler radar will be upgraded with dual polarization capabilities beginning Monday. The upgrade will take up to two weeks, during which time data from the radar will be unavailable.

This much-anticipated upgrade will result in 14 new radar products that will enable continued improvement in products and services provided by the National Weather Service's Paducah office. The new radar data will help forecasters identify the type of precipitation falling, as well as improve rainfall estimates.

The upgrade of the Paducah radar will be closely followed by identical updates to the Fort Campbell, Ky.and Owensville (Evansville), Ind. radars. The Fort Campbell upgrade will begin on or around Jan. 21, while the Owensville upgrade will begin on or around Feb. 4.

For additional information on the dual-pol upgrade, visit the Paducah NWS office's website and click on the dual-pol headline under “Top News of the Day.”

UPDATE #2, 8:30 p.m.:  Both the Gibson County radar and the Evansville NWR transmitter are back in operation.

UPDATE #1, 5:50 p.m.:  The National Weather Service Paducah WFO reports that both the Evansville and McLeansboro NOAA Weather Radio transmitters as well as the Gibson County, Ind. and Fort Campbell, Ky. weather radars will remain down "through tonight."  The outage, which began this morning, is due to the failure of a fiber optic cable.

PREVIOUSLY: The NOAA Weather Radio transmitters in Evansville (KIG76) and McLeansboro (KXI52) are down again, the Paducah weather forecast office reports.

Blame for the outage is being placed on a broken phone line, Eyewitness News meteorologist David Heckard tweeted earlier.  The Paducah office, officially, would only say it was "an apparent communications failure."

In addition, the Gibson County Doppler radar (KVWX) is also down.

A sizable portion of the Tri-State is under a slight risk for severe weather today, making speedy repairs essential.

More updates as they become available.