Traveling back? Widespread Dense Fog Thursday Morning

Travelers will have to deal with widespread dense fog if the plan is to make the drive back this morning. 

Our three counties in southern Wisconsin (Green, Rock, and Walworth County) as well as all of our northern Illinois counties have been placed under a DENSE FOG ADVISORY until 10AM. 

Visibility until then will be ranging from a quarter mile or less. Travel with extra caution, keep the high-beams off, and increase your following distance from other cars. Along with the fog, there will be the chance for patchy drizzle, which will be present all day as low-hanging clouds stay put. Afternoon highs will peak in the mid-40s. Temperatures fall only a few degrees overnight, with spotty showers arriving by Friday morning.

Rain chances increase from there as an occluded low lifts into central Iowa. Scattered showers early will turn widespread by Friday afternoon. Heaviest seems to pass to the west of the Mississippi River, closer to the occluded surface low. 

Widespread rain continues into midnight, then turning scattered by early Saturday morning. As of right now, most locales could see .25" to .50", with totals closer to 1" west of the Mississippi. 

Cloud cover and warm temperatures stay put over the weekend, leaving highs close to 50° Saturday and then low 40s Sunday. In fact, Saturday's high lands 18° above late December Standards.  

Our weather pattern stays active into next week as forecast models show another storm system takes aim at the Land of Lincoln. The exact track of this system still has to be determined, though both the American (GFS) and the European (EURO) model track it along or south of Interstate 80. This scenario would bring the chance for rain showers at first, with a transition to a wintry mix Monday night into Tuesday. This occurs as colder air wraps in on the backside of the surface low, cooling afternoon highs into the mid 30s for New Year's Eve, then below freezing to start 2025.