PADUCAH WEATHER SERVICE GETS ADDITIONAL COUNTIES

The National Weather Service is restructuring its offices, but Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois residents probably won't notice many changes.

"You'll hear more from us where normally it was from St. Louis," said meteorologist Chris Noles of the service in Paducah, Ky.

The Paducah office's service area for weather warnings and river stages will be larger after Sept. 1.

The National Weather Service has added Perry, Ripley and Carter counties in Missouri and Jefferson and Perry counties in Illinois to its hydrologic service and county warning coverage areas.

"It's part of the Weather Service modernization," Noles said. "As we gain more responsibility, we gain new county warning areas."

The office in Paducah will begin issuing flood warnings, river summaries, water supply forecasts and spring flooding outlooks for the five new counties in the region. As offices across the country are restructured, more counties are being added to existing service areas.

Ten additional staff members have been hired to accommodate the larger coverage area surrounding Paducah.

The addition of counties is also based on the scope of the radar system, Noles said. The Paducah office covers a 124-nautical mile territory, which includes its entire service area, with the addition of new territory.

Steve Thomas, meteorologist-in-charge at the St. Louis office, said the shifting of counties evens out in the end.

With the closing of the Columbia office, both St. Louis and Kansas City offices picked up an additional eight counties and Springfield will add seven counties in September.

"When it's all said and done, St. Louis ended up with a gain of one county," Thomas said.