Pulling Down the Curtain on the Sunshine....

After two weeks of dry weather, and the last 4 day with gorgeous sunshine, the pattern is flip/flopping. The Canadian high pressure that provided our fabulous weather has shifted off to the east. We have had our last sunny day for at least the next week. A vigorous mid level disturbance is located over northeastern Nebraska tonight, and it has assisted in the development of a surface low between Omaha, and Sioux City. The surface low will move to near the quad cities by noon on Sunday. Clouds and precipitation have spread out across Iowa in advance of the eastward moving system. Some light rain could cross the Mississippi River into far northwestern Illinois by midnight, and reach the Rockford area toward daybreak. Temperatures will be cold enough that some light freezing rain may develop. It is not anticipated to be heavy enough to cause any significant problems for the local area. The coldest temperatures tonight will occur by midnight, and hold steady or rise a bit later on as the clouds thicken up associated with the system moving in from the west. Sunday will be showery day under the clouds as the system moves across northern Illinois. Rain will be done by evening, but it will remain mostly cloudy overnight with the potential for fog development from rain evaporating, and minimal air movemetnt. Patchy fog may linger into Monday morning, and the clouds may hang on a while too, as a dirty high moves in from the northern plains. So, Monday will be a dry day with some breaks possible in the clouds. The next system is a formidable strong low pressure system, both at the surface and aloft, that will move from off the California coast tonight to a postion over the Texas/Oklahoma panhandle by 6 pm on Monday night.  It's effects on the midwest are still in question, but it looks as if it does have the potential for producing a prolongued showery period in the Stateline from Tuesday through Thursday, and possibly into Friday.  It will become a closed system as it crawls slowly eastward to a position over the middle Mississippi Valley by Thursday. Although heavy rainfall is not anticipated for our area with this system, it could produce up to 1" of rain over several days next week. With the melting snow and the runoff from the rain because of frozen ground, there may be some rises on the Rock and other area rivers by mid to late week..
by Eric Nefstead