Friday into Saturday

There is a little more clarity heading into this weekend but still some fine details that will need to be ironed out over the next day. 

Today: A weak disturbance moving through the Plains has allowed some precipitation to form through Wisconsin and back into Iowa but because the mid-levels of the atmosphere are still fairly dry, a lot of this is not making it to the ground.  It will take some time before we see any of that work through the Stateline and by the time it does, temperatures should be above freezing for it to fall in the form of light rain later this evening.

By Friday the next low will have begun to organize in the southern Plains with an inverted trough extending northeast into the Great Lakes.  Temperatures will remain above freezing so I do feel the majority of the afternoon should see all rain.  Amounts could range close to a half an inch to three quarters inch, but it also appears that the models might be over-doing the moisture some.  Either way we should see some rain by Friday afternoon.  There is still some discrepancy as to where exactly the low will track by Saturday morning as the early morning run of the NAM takes the low straight across northern Illinois with roughly six inches of snow accumulating by Saturday night.  Yikes!  While I'm not buying that one just yet, the colder air wrapping in on the back edge of this system will help the rain to transition over to probably some type of wintry mix late on Friday with a change over to snow by Saturday.