Saturday morning weather update

 

With many National Weather Service offices zeroing in on winter storm impacts to our south not a whole lot has started yet with this system. Right now, the system that has been talked about for a week now is off to the west over the Western portions of the United States but as it moves east impacts will be felt quickly into tomorrow.

A large swath of winter weather alerts has already been issued from Kansas to Virginia in the anticipation of the impacts of this winter storm from snow, ice and even severe weather for portions of the deep south. Here across the state line impacts are expected to be a little to none however some snowfall may still be possible for some locations.

While the highest totals remain to our south the next few days, with favorable orientation over Lake Michigan, strong low level wind speeds look to develop lake effect showers that may be persistent enough to make it to portions of the state line. These showers would not bring as significant totals but at least some flurries may be spotted as we move from Sunday night into Monday morning. If these showers do spread west, take things slow during the commute Monday morning especially in the eastern portions of the state line mainly Dekalb and McHenry counties.

Some models are depicting this lake effect shower band to set up farther east near Chicago however depending on the placement of the low-pressure system to the south, surface winds may be orientated just right to promote at least minimal snowfall farther west.

During those two days though we will still be cold near the surface as temperatures will remain in the 20's with overnight temperatures continuing to drop in the teens. As well with a low-pressure system to our south, windy conditions will continue at the surface continuing to drop our wind chills into the single digits and lower.

So, if you do decide to be outside during this chilly weekend just make sure to bundle up especially towards the morning and nighttime hours when wind chills will be near or below zero. Much of the same looks to continue for the rest of the week as well so it looks like winter may finally have decided to stick around!