First Warn Weather Team

The arctic air mass has moderated considerably as it continues to move toward the east, It will be over northern Alabama by midnight, and still is the main weather maker over the eastern half of the nation. Skies will be clear across northern Illinois early tonight, but high clouds from a system over the southern plains are already moving east though Iowa.  So, clouds will edge into the Stateline later tonight. The first clouds will be high thin cirrus, and may hardly be noticeable before daybreak. The overnight low will be in the low to middle teens. It will quickly become overcast on Monday morning as clouds lower and thicken. The surface air will initially be very dry, so it will take some time to saturate the atmosphere down to the surface delaying the start of snow until mid afternoon on Monday, although there could be a few flurries before that.   The high temperature will be in the low 30's, and around 1" of snow could fall by 6 pm Monday evening.  It will continue snowing lightly on Monday night with to another 1" possible by daybreak on Tuesday morning.  Flurries may linger off and on through the morning on Tuesday under clouds skies.  The clouds will start to thin out on Tuesday afternoon, and there may be some breaks allowing some sunshine by later on in the afternoon.  Weak high pressure will take charge on Wednesday with partly sunny skies and temperatures reaching the upper 30's by mid afternoon.  A southern stream low pressure system will begin it's approach on Wednesday night.  Enough warm air will be in place so that precipitation that falls could be either rain or snow or a rain/snow mix.  However, at this time it looks like any accumulating snow will be to the north across Wisconsin later on Wednesday night into Thursday.  That system will depart off to the east as a sprawling Pacific high takes control of area weather on Friday.  Temperatures will continue to run a little above season averages through next weekend.