What a Way to Start December!

Showers will be likely this evening, and there is even a slight chance of a thunderstorm until 11 pm. It will be cloudy and unseasonably mild with patchy fog and drizzle after midnight. The low will be an incredible 52 degrees. Keep in mind that the average high this time of year is 39 degrees, and the average low is 23 degrees. So the overnight low will be around 29 degrees above average. Southwest winds will keep blowing between 10 and 15 mph tonight. There could be some lingering patchy fog during the morning hours on Sunday. A weak front will settle through the Stateline early in the day. Skies will be partly sunny in the morning, but with drier air moving in from the northwest, it could become mostly sunny in the afternoon. Expect another very mild day with the afternoon temperature reaching around 58 degrees in the Rockford area.  A little bubble of weak high pressure will make skies mostly clear on Sunday night, and it will be a little cooler with a low around 46 degrees.  On Monday the Gulf of Mexico will be wide open from the south into the mid west.  A very strong low pressure system will be intensifying just to the north of the North Dakota/Canadian border.  A tight pressure gradient will set up over the mid west causing strong southwesterly winds to blow at 15-25 mph with gusts to 35 mph.  It appears that a new high temperature record could be set in the Rockford area on Monday.  High temperatures will be in the middle 60's, and the official record for Rockford on Monday is 65 degrees set back in 1970.  Moisture will be in place from the Gulf of Mexico as the cold front approaches the Stateline late in the day.  Showers will develop, and there is even the possibility of a brief thunderstorm in the early evening just ahead of the cold front as is moves through the area.  The first front is Pacific in origin, so there will not be a drastic drop in temperature overnight.  It will get cooler as winds shift to the northwest , but only moderately so, with an overnight low around 40 degrees early on Tuesday morning.  With a dry air mass following in behind the front, it will be sunny on Tuesday, and the high will be close to 50 degrees.  A Canadian cold front will move across the area late Tuesday dropping temperatures more significantly.  The low on Wednesday morning will be near 28 degrees, and the high during the day will be about 41 degrees under mostly sunny skies.  Another Canadian cold front will approach on Thursday.  Skies will become mostly cloudy, and there will be some scattered rain showers with highs in the middle 40's.  That front will pass off to the southeast of the area by early Friday as yet another Canadian cold front approaches from the northwest.  With cold unstable air aloft there could be some scattered rain and snow showers on Friday.  Finally, temperatures will be down to seasonal levels normal for early December.  The high on Friday will be around 38 degrees.  Saturday looks even colder with a high in the middle 30's.  That's quite a change from the beginning of the week through the next seven days.