Ring of Fire Pattern Expected to Develop

A weak cool front is stalling out just to the northwest of the Stateline tonight.  It spawned a weak disturbance that generated cloud cover that moved southeast across the area on Saturday evening.  It tried to get some precipitation going, but produced nothing more than a few sprinkles.    Skies will be partly cloudy overnight.  It will be warm and humid with a low around 70 degrees.  On Sunday the front will retreat back towards the north as a warm front.  Temperatures will heat up to around 90 degrees in the afternoon, and there may be enough instability to cause a few showers and thunderstorms to pop up.  Scattered showers and thunderstorms will dot parts of the area on Sunday night.  It will be warm and humid with a low in the 70's with a southerly wind blowing around 10 mph. On Monday heat from the plains will overspread northern Illinois pushing afternoon temperatures up close to 100 degrees.  Expect the heat index to be between 100 and 105.  There will be a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms during the day, but chances of showers and thunderstorms will rise overnight as a cool front pushes southward across the Illinois/Wisconsin border by 6 am.  The front will stall out, and become stationary from Moline to Champaign.  Easterly winds coming off an high pressure area moving across the Great Lakes will drop afternoon highs on Tuesday into the middle to upper 80's.  With the massive high that has been causing days and days of record heat in the plains states retrograding toward the west, a  ring of fire pattern may develop this coming week with disturbances sliding southeastward across the upper mid west generating thunderstorm complexes.  It would be good to see a series of these complexes move across the Stateline next week.  It is by no means guaranteed that this will happen, but at least there appears to be potential for some improvement in our serious drought situation during the next week before the pattern changes again.