NWS Highlights Flooding Impacts Under Regional Flood Watch
Excessive runoff may flood rivers, streams, and low-lying areas across 44 zones in Illinois, Kentucky, and Missouri.
2 reports on this incident · first at Aug 19, 2026, 9:42 p.m. ET
Earlier reports
Aug 19, 2026, 9:42 p.m. ETFirst report
NWS Issues Flood Watch for Portions of Illinois, Kentucky, and Missouri
A developing weather situation has prompted a Flood Watch across 44 zones in southern Illinois, western Kentucky, and southeast Missouri on August 20, 2026. According to official records from the National Weather Service Paducah KY, the watch began at 8:23 PM CDT on August 19, 2026, and expires at 7:00 AM CDT on Thursday, August 20, 2026.
The National Weather Service official record states that flash flooding caused by excessive rainfall is possible. Excessive runoff may result in flooding of rivers, creeks, streams, and other low-lying and flood-prone locations.
The advisory covers portions of southern Illinois, including Alexander, Gallatin, Hardin, Jackson, Johnson, Massac, Pope, Pulaski, Saline, Union, and Williamson; western Kentucky, including Ballard, Caldwell, Calloway, Carlisle, Christian, Crittenden, Daviess, Fulton, Graves, Henderson, Hickman, Hopkins, Livingston, Lyon, Marshall, McCracken, McLean, Muhlenberg, Todd, Trigg, Union KY, and Webster; and southeast Missouri, including Bollinger, Butler, Cape Girardeau, Carter, Mississippi, New Madrid, Perry MO, Ripley, Scott, Stoddard, and Wayne MO. Cities in the watch area include Carbondale, Owensboro, Cape Girardeau, and Poplar Bluff. The official record advises that residents should monitor later forecasts and be prepared to take action should Flash Flood Warnings be issued.
Was this report accurate and useful?
Sources
Revision history
- Version 120 Aug 2026, 01:53current
First published.
- Version 120 Aug 2026, 01:42current
First published.
How we work
This site models an investigative reporter rather than a wire desk. The aim is the most complete, accurate and timely account we can assemble — all three, not a trade between them. Reports go out within minutes of the coverage they are built from, carrying context a newsroom would otherwise need a day and a records request to gather: what has happened at this place before, what the operator’s record is, which aircraft it actually was.
Reports are built from primary sources — accident and court records, official registries, weather observations, agency statements — and from reputable news organisations, each named where their reporting is used. Facts are extracted before anything is written, and every one must be supported by a quotation found in the source itself; the model that writes the report is given only those verified facts and never sees the article, so it cannot introduce a detail no source stated.
Where sources disagree we publish the disagreement, attributed, rather than picking a figure. Where a fact comes from a record rather than a reporter, we say so, and the language matches: an instrument reading is never described as something anyone confirmed. Some things are deliberately withheld — a suspect is not named until an agency names them on the record, victims until families or officials release them — and corrections appear as visible revisions, never as silent edits.
None of that makes a report true. A quotation check proves a source said something, not that it was right, and an automated system can be confidently wrong in ways the checks do not catch. If something here is wrong, the feedback above is how it gets found. The full methodology, including what we refuse to publish.