Rain Chances Increase into Next Week

As heat and humidity are expected to build, the pattern over the Stateline turns a bit more active. Northern Illinois will find itself in what is known as the “ring of fire.”. Meteorologically, the "ring of fire" begins when a potent ridge of high pressure forms over a region. In this case, this ridge will take aim at the four corners region once again. This ridge will displaced the jet stream further to the north, mainly around the Upper Great Plains/Southern Canada vicinity. Any system that rides over the ridge and will likely track into the Midwest. This pattern will provide multiple opportunities for storms through the weekend and into the start of next week. This could slowly help out with the drought situation that is growing across the State of Illinois.

As the ridge begins to grown in size, models continue to show the first opportunity arriving overnight Friday into Saturday morning. However, this complex of thunderstorms will most likely impact areas closer to Peoria and across central Illinois. For the Stateline, this will only bring additional cloud cover for the start of our day tomorrow.


The outflow from these morning showers and storms could spark a few afternoon thunderstorms locally, though. That is why the Storm Prediction Center has expanded the severe threat for tomorrow. Placing a good chunk of our viewing area under a Marginal Risk (level 1 of 5) and a few spots our towards the west under a Slight Risk (level 2 of 5) for severe weather. However, most of our day tomorrow looks to remain fairly dry with highs in the low 80s.

The second round of storms we are monitoring, moves in overnight Saturday into Sunday morning. A Mesoscale Convective System (M.C.S., or a line of thunderstorms) will track into the region from the west. Typically with an M.C.S, gusty winds and heavy rainfall are the biggest concerns. But at the moment, it is hard to tell what the biggest threats will be since model guidance continues to show a weakening trend with this system comes before it comes blasting through northern Illinois. Aside from the storm chances, heat and humidity are set to return to the region. Highs by the start of next week will be in the middle and upper 80’s with dew points likely to be near 70°.