For the third time this season the high temperature has reached 90 degrees, 92 to be exact for Rockford. As of 6pm, temperatures remain in the upper 80s and low 90s under partly cloudy skies. Plenty of sunshine early on allowed temperatures to warm, but over the last couple of hours you may have noticed clouds beginning to 'bubble up' over northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin.
There are a couple features that I've been keeping an eye on that could lead to at least some isolated activity through sunset, followed by more widely scattered activity later this evening. The first is a cold front slowly moving south into southern Wisconsin. The second is a weakly organized upper-level disturbance moving into eastern Iowa, fueling a cluster of thunderstorms in northeast Missouri and west-central Illinois.
A more widespread cumulus field developed earlier today in central Illinois and there have been a few very isolated showers that have developed as a result. Further north, in northern Illinois, the clouds are growing but have yet to show any radar returns with them (signs of precipitation). Within the next hour or two we may start to see at least some isolated activity develop along and ahead of the front in northern Illinois but the chance for those storms remains isolated in nature and are only about 20%.
The cluster of storms moving into west-central Illinois will continue to travel northeast over the next several hours, reaching areas southwest of Rockford after sunset and closer to 9pm/10pm. If this cluster were to hold together the biggest threats would be heavy downpours.
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