A Snow Friday, Warm Weekend Ahead

As stated before, old man winter has made himself pretty comfortable across the Stateline as of late. Just like like year, winter is going out with a bang as a blast of light to moderate moved in around the time many of us were waking up this morning. As far as snowfall reports, many are stepping outside to accumulations ranging from 2" to 5". In fact, the Rockford International Airport measured 2.5" at 7 AM, demolishing the previous record of a half an inch set all the way back in 1926. Fortunately, the mid-April sun angle and the warmer temperatures we'll see this weekend will quickly help get rid of the snow we received today.  

An elongated area of low pressure that tracked into central Illinois this morning is behind what could be known as winter's last stand. As conditions began to wind down earlier, the National Weather Service cancelled the Winter Weather Advisory for Carroll & Whiteside counties. That did leave behind Lee & Dekalb counties as the only counties left in the Stateline under the Winter Weather Advisory. As of 10 AM, the National Weather Service has allowed this advisory to expire. Snow is beginning to wind down in eastern Iowa, specifically around the Cedar Rapids area, and south of Dubuque. The Stateline will have another hour or two with light snow before everything tapers off around noontime.

Once the snow fully tapers off, the second half of our day features a slow decrease in cloud cover, with a slight chance for patchy drizzle/light showers. Behind this elongated area of low pressure, our surface winds briefly switch to the northeast. This will allow these winds to pull a little moisture off of Lake Michigan, which will help develop patchy drizzle, and maybe a shower or two late this afternoon. After that, high pressure will once again takes control and help dry out our atmosphere. This will lead to decreasing clouds by this evening, allowing for a dry, quiet, and partly cloudy overnight. Now, old man winter has kept our region unseasonably cold this entire week. This afternoon, we will see highs climb into the upper 40s. Thankfully, this will be the last time we'll be talking about highs in the 40s for the foreseeable future. 

The weekend brings the return of some sunshine, and more seasonable temperatures. That same high pressure system I mentioned earlier slides into the Stateline, leading to a mostly sunny start to our day tomorrow. There may be a few high clouds that stream in overhead by the afternoon, but that won't stop highs from climbing into the upper 50s. Along with the sunshine on Saturday comes very gusty winds. Warm southwesterly winds are going to help eat away at all that fresh snow, as gusts could approach 40 mph at times. The next time we'll see rain chances will be overnight Saturday into Sunday morning as a weak frontal boundary is set to pass through. This could lead to a spotty shower or two during the overnight hours. Rainfall totals with this are forecast to be minimal, with less than a tenth of an inch likely. Temperatures won't be affect by this frontal boundary as there isn't much cold air behind it. Under a mostly cloudy sky, temperatures will once again warm into the upper 50s Sunday.