Snow on the Radar, Not at the Surface Yet

9:30pm Update: The NWS office in Chicago has cancelled the Winter Weather Advisory for all Stateline counties. The NWS out of the Quad Cities is continuing this advisory for Whiteside county. The dry air that I talked about earlier in this same post is indeed limiting snow totals. Although some places south of I-88 could still see 4" or more of snow, most of us are now looking at 1-3" of accumulation.

Snow is showing up on the radar as of 5:36pm across the Stateline, but not at the surface just yet. There is a lot of dry air at ground level that's causing much of this snow to evaporate before it reaches the ground. Eventually the snow will reach the surface here (mainly after 8pm), but I am dropping the totals just a bit because of this dry air factor.

Also, in looking at what's happening to our west, there is a sharp cut-off with the snow on the northern side of this storm. Right now it is snowing heavily at Kirksville, MO, but only lightly in Des Moines, IA with 3-mile visibility. Just 30 miles north of Des Moines in Ames, no snow is being reported at all at this time. One thing I'm speculating is that this "cut-off line" could hang-out somewhere over the Stateline, giving areas north of Rockford an inch or less of accumulation while areas to the south of I-88 still see up to 8" of snow. We'll continue to watch this... In the meantime, our latest snowfall forecast can be viewed above.