Sometimes a small change in the weather can lead to a big difference between the forecast and what we actually see. That happened Friday morning with our low temperatures thanks to the wind.
Rockford officially tied a record low Friday morning by hitting -15° at the airport. The other time we hit -15° was on this date back in 1994.
The forecast was calling for lows around -8°, so what happened? In this case, we were expecting winds in the 5-10mph range for Thursday night and Friday morning. Winds help circulate the air, which keeps temps from cooling off as much as what we would see under calm conditions.
Check out the observations from the Rockford airport Thursday night and Friday morning. From about 8:00pm Thursday until 9:00am Friday, winds were non-existent. That's great for wind chills, but actual temperatures paid the price in the end.
Forecasting will never be perfect, but meteorologists try to learn from situations like this to make better forecasts down the road. Stay warm! -BA
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