Rain likely Friday, especially later in the day

Widespread dense fog was the talk of the town for holiday travelers on Thursday. 

Little different this morning as the greatest potential for widespread dense fog is west of the Mississippi river where dense fog alerts stretch from the U.S/Canadian border to central Texas. 

The focus today will be the increasing rain chances as well as unseasonably mild temperatures. Rain will be light and scattered Friday morning, becoming more widespread by the afternoon. 

Rain will remain likely into the first half of the night, with chances decreasing into Saturday morning as the occluded low lifts into Wisconsin. When it is all said and done, we could be looking at widespread .25" to .50" totals, with isolated totals up to .75".  

The heaviest rain will fall west and northwest of the Mississippi River. Temperature-wise, afternoon highs are likely to surge into the upper 40s, with a few locales west of Rockford briefly touching the 50° mark. Surface winds will shift to the southwest overnight, resulting in a very slow temperature drop. 

Expect lows Saturday morning to be in the low 40s. How does this compare to late-December standards? Well, normally we're in the upper teens. So yes, Saturday morning will be unseasonably mild. Small improvements filter in for the start of the weekend. Clouds early Saturday should give way to at least a few hours of mixed sunshine later in the day. While a stray sprinkle can’t be ruled out entirely, it’s expected that most, if not all of Saturday will be dry, with temperatures reaching around 50°.