Winter is Settling In

Not exactly what we wanted to see this time of year: cold temperatures and strong winds!  This being a recipe for some brutally cold temperatures than many of us aren't ready for.  Regardless, it happened today, with wind chills being in the teens this afternoon because of the 40 mph wind gusts.  However, we hit our peak wind 11pm Monday night when a report came in of a 56mph wind gust in the Rockford area.

Winds have died down since then, but it'll still be a little breezy during the overnight, which is going to keep our wind chills in the single digits during the overnight tonight, even though your thermometers will say low 20's.  We've also got a chance for seeing a few snow flurries during the overnight, mainly between midnight and about 3am.  After that, the skies will clear again and we'll be greeted with more sunshine Wednesday morning.

As we go through the rest of the week, this occluding low pressure system will continue to push cold air into our area.  This is the same low pressure system that's been bringing us cold temperatures the past several days now.  An occluding low pressure system means that what we're seeing at the surface of the earth is the same as what we're seeing at the mid and upper levels of the atmosphere.

So what you see in the picture above is happening at all levels of the atmosphere, so you can imagine why our temperatures have taken a massive plunge lately, and why they will continue to do so.

However, we do have some good news for snow lovers, as this low will also allow for snow chances coming up this Friday!  At this point we're expecting a light snowfall, with accumulations looking to be around half an inch.  The snow is expected to start late afternoon Friday, and looks to continue into the overnight.

By the time we reach the weekend, temperatures will stay in the 20's, until we get to Sunday which is when we'll get a little relief by seeing temperatures in the 30's again.  The 30's stay with us into Monday, before another trough passes to bring us more cold air and bring us back into the 20's for Tuesday.