More Sunshine Ahead of Late Week Rain Chances & Cool Down

If you enjoyed yesterday's weather, you will also enjoy the weather that is in store for you today. Thanks to a large area of high pressure over the Great Lakes region, our weather will stay consistently sunny and dry.

We did start out once again on the chilly side this morning. Temperatures underwent the process of radiational cooling and dropped into the upper 30s in a few spots, with most ending up in the low 40s. Typically, you need clear skies and light surface winds for radiational cooling to occur. This basically means all the heat that the surface absorbed during the previous afternoon gets radiated back into space. As the heat is radiated back, temperatures rapidly cool which was why grabbing a jacket this morning was highly recommended.

As high pressure continues to dominate the region, today will feature deep blue skies and wall to wall sunshine. There may be a few of those flat fair weather cumulus clouds this afternoon. Sinking air is found underneath a high pressure and that helps to prevent clouds from rising much into the atmosphere. Unlike yesterday where we had winds out of the west, winds at the surface today will generally be out of the southeast & south. That is why conditions today will be pleasantly warm with highs in the low 70s. Get outside today and enjoy the weather!

Tonight’s forecast has temperatures falling into the low to mid 40s for the 3rd straight night in a row. Although this high pressure system will slide further to the east, there will still be plenty of dry air throughout the atmosphere. This will lead to a mostly clear overnight and another chilly start tomorrow morning. Wednesday will be our last day of completely dry weather. We’ll start the day with plenty of sunshine, but as the day progresses, clouds will be on the increase.With that said, the dry spell does continue into the second half of the work week.

Rain chances return to the forecast Thursday  night ahead of an approaching strong cold front.  We’ll see rain and a few storms for much of the day on Friday as the front slides through the Stateline. It won't be until Saturday where we really start to see the coldest air of the season so far move into the region. Highs will go from the upper 60s on Friday, down to the upper 40s for Saturday and Sunday.

That is around 15 degrees below average for this time of year, and closer to our usual overnight temperatures! We’ll see overnight lows in the much closer to the freezing mark than to our normal low starting Friday night and stretching through the weekend. Fun weather fact, we haven't seen highs in the 40s here in Rockford since April 30th. So it's definitely been a while. Our first fall frost is also likely this weekend with the air being so close to freezing. Make sure to plan ahead, and protect your plants and garden if necessary!