Temperatures remain above average into Thanksgiving week, could see a few showers leading up to Thanksgiving Day

The first half of the upcoming weekend is expected to remain mostly a dry. A cold front passing through early Friday morning will come through dry, bringing with it just a little more cloud cover. High pressure will then quickly build in during the afternoon and evening Friday, pushing the cold front further south into southern Illinois Friday night. Showers Saturday will be lining up along the front from the Plains, through Missouri and southern Illinois. East/northeast winds will keep our skies mostly dry, but at times cloudy, during the day Saturday. A few showers are expected to return, lifting north from central and southern Illinois late Saturday night and into Sunday. This will continue into Sunday afternoon but should remain fairly light.  

Temperatures over the weekend will fall from the 68 degrees we reached Thursday, but remain slightly above average. Sunshine continues into next Monday with highs reaching the low to mid 40s - which is fairly seasonable. While no major warm up is in store next week, temperatures will be rising back into the mid and upper 40s, possibly reaching the low 50s, towards the end of the week. To put this into perspective, average highs are in the low 40s.

Precipitation chances do return early Tuesday morning as another low pressure systems works in from the west. Late Monday night a light wintry mix will be possible and could last into early Tuesday morning before switching over to all rain for the afternoon. Depending on how long the low sticks around we could see some of those showers, perhaps mixed in again with a little wintry weather overnight Tuesday and Wednesday morning, lasting into Wednesday afternoon. By Thanksgiving (next Thursday), skies look to remain dry but we could see some clouds from time to time. Temperatures are forecast to warm into the upper 40s and low 50s - running about 7-10 degrees above normal.