No Break For Area Rivers

It's been a soggy January so far, not with snow, but with rain. We talked earlier that the Rockford area broke a record for daily rainfall on Monday, receiving a little over an inch.

With recent rain and ice jamming, local area rivers have been rising. There are currently a few river flood advisories across the area that we will need to keep an eye on, with even more rain coming.

Rain will be arriving late this afternoon from the south and will be lifting north, starting at about 4pm. One item of note is the position of the jet stream in the upper atmosphere, oriented from southwest to northeast. Its originating in central Mexico, which is its pulling warmth but also moisture to northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. This is bringing a lot of moisture to the area for the month January, rain totals for the area will reach around .25" to .50" but locally higher amounts are possible in any embedded storms we have tonight.

We can't forget though, that we're still in the dead of winter, and our ground is still frozen. This will allow for a lot of runoff concerns and localized flooding or ponding. Temperatures will be continuing to warm, so we really don't have a freezing concern through the weekend. There will be a few showers that will be possible Friday night and through the weekend, but they don't really amount to much. Next week, the next system passes south of us on Monday.