Wednesday, March 14, 2018

Brief Return of Winter for the Start of the Weekend

High pressure will keep skies mostly clear through the end of the week but an incoming low pressure system will bring a chance for snow, sleet and even freezing rain to parts of the Midwest and Great Lakes late Friday night.


Low pressure will quickly develop over Colorado late Thursday night, moving into the central Plains Friday before swinging south of northern Illinois early Saturday morning.  A fairly significant dry air mass in place over much of Wisconsin and northern Illinois will keep the majority of Friday afternoon dry, but cool.


Moisture from the south will initially have a hard time reaching northern Illinois Friday evening due to the dry air.  Strong high pressure building down from Canada will continue to feed dry and cool air into the Great Lakes Friday and into Saturday morning.


As low pressure moves closer late Friday night, most likely after 10pm, the chance for a mixture of snow and sleet will begin to increase.  Warmer air drawn northward ahead of the low will allow the potential for a little freezing rain to mix in at times, which could last into early Saturday morning.  Right now it looks like we're on the northern fringe of the precipitation and if the dry air coming in from the north is stronger than forecast, the majority of the precipitation could miss us all together.  This isn't expected to be a major event, but if we do see a little freezing rain overnight Friday it could cause things to become a little slick on the roads.


Right now it doesn't appear as if there will be an impact to the St. Patrick's Day parade taking place in downtown Rockford Saturday afternoon.  But if the storm system slows down a little, then the start of the parade could be a little wet.

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