Warm Thursday Ahead of Late-Season Cold

If you were up bright and early this morning, you had a good chance to see the last super moon of 2020. Skies this morning were mostly clear across the Stateline, giving us a front row seat of the beautiful lunar spectacle. When a full moon is considered to be a "super moon" it's because the moon is making it's closest approach to the Earth in it's elliptical orbit. This results in the moon having a larger and brighter appearance in the night sky. May's full moon is also called the "flower moon". So, hopefully you were up in time to witness this morning's super moon. If not, there's always next time.

Our forecast for today is pretty much a "copy & paste" of yesterday's weather with just one little difference. Winds our of the west-northwest may be a little gusty stretching from 12 PM to 6 PM, gusting upwards of 20-25 mph. Other than that, sunny skies and warmer temperatures will lead to highs once again climbing into the low to mid 60s ahead of an approaching cold front. Just like yesterday, it's going to be a great day to go outside. However, this afternoon's breeze will lead to higher levels of pollen, especially for maple, birch, & ash trees. If you have plans to go outdoors today, make sure to take your allergy meds before heading out!

As of this morning, that cold front was shown draped across southern Wisconsin. This frontal boundary is expected to slide through late in the day today and is going to help filter in a much colder air-mass for our Friday. After topping out nearly 20° below average Friday afternoon give way to lows in the upper 20s and low 30s overnight Friday into Saturday.

Many National Weather Service office's across the Midwest, the Great Lakes, and the Mid-Atlantic have already placed a freeze alert for their respective area. For us here in the Stateline, a freeze watch goes into effect for our northern Illinois counties (so far) beginning at midnight Saturday, lasting until 8 AM. If you have any sensitive plants outside, it would be wise to bring them inside before Friday night to have a lesser chance of being harmed by the freeze. If you have a garden in your yard, make sure that you cover any vegetation.


Here's a little history on freezes for the Rockford area. Typically, our last spring freeze on average happens between April 21st and April 30th. That just goes to show you how late in this season this freeze is. Since 1905, there have only been 8 hard freezes observed on record for Rockford, with the last hard freeze happening all the way back on May 4th, 2005.