Dry skies and warmth heading into the weekend

High pressure moved overhead Thursday leaving nothing but sunshine and temperatures warming into the upper 60s and low 70s, officially reaching 73 degrees in Rockford. The clear sky will continue through much of Thursday night and into Friday morning, with temperatures falling on either side of 50 degrees.

Low pressure moving across southern Canada will pull a warm front through the Midwest Friday with temperatures warming into the upper 70s, to near 80 degrees, across southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois. Since the Stateline will be well removed from the storm system, skies are expected to remain dry and mostly clear for much of Friday.  

There will be a little increase in moisture by Saturday morning as a cold front nears from the north. This will likely bring us a few more clouds during that time, but any rain should hold off until the front passes by early afternoon, leaving the best chance for rain to the south and east. The remnants of Hurricane Delta will lift north from the Gulf, but be pulled more to the east Saturday and Sunday. An increase in cloud cover could leave our skies mostly cloudy from time to time Sunday, but southerly winds will push temperatures back into the mid 70s. Sunday night will remain very mild with overnight lows heading into Monday around 60 degrees. The next chance for rain will return with an even stronger cold front early Monday. Highs behind that front will rise to around 70 degrees.

The latest drought monitor from the National Drought Mitigation Center continues to show abnormally dry conditions across much of northeast Illinois, central and southern Illinois, with moderate drought conditions developing in central and east-central Illinois. Even though we've only had a tenth of an inch of rain so far the first week of October, it hasn't had a major factor on our soil moisture as we came out of September with a surplus. During the month of September over six inches of rain came down and by the time we ended the month, we had over a three inch surplus. Drought conditions are not expected to develop any time soon.