Valentine's Day Forecast

Temperatures this morning started in the lower 20's, much warmer than our past few mornings. This will set the stage for a nice and mild afternoon. Temperatures on your Valentine's day will climb into the upper 30's and low 40's across northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. Skies will remain mostly sunny through most of the afternoon, with a breezy southwest wind at 5-15mph and gusting near 20mph.

Ahead of our next low pressure system, cloud cover and moisture will be brought in from the south. Clouds thicken a little before dinner time tonight, with drizzle and fog developing in the early evening. You might run into this as you head home from your Valentine's day plans this evening. Areas of dense fog are possible as well overnight into tomorrow morning. But perfect cuddle weather in my book!

Compared to average, we usually spend this holiday in the 30's with dry conditions. So today looks to be near to slightly above average. It's possible that some areas climb into the low 40's this afternoon. Through the years we've had 22 Valentine's days in the 40's, but never have we made it to at least 60°. We did come close, in 2006 our high temperature climbed to 59°. And while this holiday is typically dry, one year we did get 6.0" increase of snow! That was the highest total we've seen on Valentine's in recorded weather history.