Mild temperatures linger into Christmas Day

Hopefully you were able to enjoy Sunday's sunshine as sunshine will unfortunately be hard to come by during the week of Christmas. 

Skies remain mostly cloudy today. An organized southerly wind should allow afternoon highs to peak in the upper 30s. Winds will ease by this evening, staying light out of the south and southwest overnight. This will result in a small temperature drop, leaving lows in the low 30s. 
 

With a ridge of high pressure taking hold of the central United States, warmer air spills in northward for Tuesday. Afternoon highs should peak in the low 40s under a partly cloudy sky. 

 

 

  

Looking back, Rockford's top 8 warmest Christmases all fall within the 48° to 60° range. 3 of the top eight have occurred in the last 6 years. 

Now, from what we gathered this past weekend, it seemed like 50s were a given for Christmas Day. However, forecast models this morning have placed the warm front further south, leaving us with high temperatures in the upper 30s.    

Cloud cover, patchy drizzle, and fog potential are also on the table given the amount of low-level moisture forecast models were showing. That would also bring the likelihood for 50s down a notch. So, I wound up taking our high and bumping it down a few degrees, leaving us at 49 degrees. With it only being Monday, changes in the forecast can still occur so we'll have to see how things trend the next few days.