Dry, Comfortable Week to Follow Weekend Heat

After a second consecutive weekend of excessive heat in the Stateline, a stretch of comfortably warm and dry weather is expected for the upcoming week.

On Saturday, the city of Rockford reached a high of 91° though most of the day was spent with heat indices in the mid-90’s thanks to dewpoint temperatures in the lower to middle 70’s. In the Stateline’s westernmost counties, where dewpoint temperatures were a couple of degrees higher, some areas including Galena, Savanna, and Sterling saw a 100° heat index Saturday afternoon. The National Weather Service has issued a heat advisory for Stephenson, Jo Daviess, Carroll, and Whiteside Counties and is set to expire at 7:00 PM CDT on Sunday.

Dewpoint temperatures are expected to hold steady, if not increase a degree or two, heading into Sunday. Temperatures are forecast to be a tad warmer likely reaching the lower 90’s across much of the area which will result in triple digit heat indices, possibly as high as 104 degrees. Triple digit heat indices could arrive in the Stateline as early as 12 o’clock noon and last four to five hours. A passing cold front will bring a line of showers and thunderstorms to the area from the northwest midafternoon. The rain will likely reach the Rockford area later in the afternoon, reaching the southeastern portions of the Stateline by the early evening. The system will quickly cool temperatures allowing them to fall into the 70’s by the midevening.

The rain will slowly taper off through the night and into Monday morning. By late morning on Monday, just about all of the rain should be out of the Stateline. Much of the cloud cover will soon follow suit allowing more and more sunshine to flow in through the afternoon and evening. Following this cold frontal passage, two large high pressure systems will move through the area over the rest of the week. The first will inch in from the west late Monday. The second much stronger system of high pressure will begin to influence our weather late Wednesday as it approaches from the north and will continue to do so through the end of the work week. These two systems will help keep the low and mid-levels of our atmosphere relatively dry with dewpoint temperatures forecast to hold steady in the upper 50’s to lower 60’s. They will also reduce the dynamics necessary for rainfall over the Stateline. Zonal mid-level flow should help regulate temperatures through the week keeping them in the middle 80’s during the day and lower to middle 60’s overnight. This will result in a mostly dry and very comfortable work week following early Monday morning.