Flurries and light snow showers developed Thursday afternoon, first to the south of Rockford, but then were quick to spread north into northern Illinois mid to late afternoon. Most of the snow was light, but there were a few heavier pockets of snow embedded within, reducing visibility down to under a couple miles in a few locations.
The limited sunshine we had earlier in the day was enough to warm pavement temperatures to keep most of the snow from sticking, but under the heavier snow bands minor accumulations did occur on some of the pavement, such as sidewalks and driveways.
The snow will end from west to east through 8pm/9pm, with a few flurries lasting through Midnight. After that, mostly cloudy skies are expected through the night with temperatures falling into the upper teens. The lack of snow this winter season has been very noticeable with Meteorological Winter (December, January, February) only receiving 15.7 inches. That's just a little more than 13 inches below normal. Precipitation was down too, only receiving 4.05 inches, putting us at 1.11 inches below normal.
The lack of precipitation and overall snow could end up having significant impacts on our soil moisture heading into the Spring season as most of northern Illinois and all of southern Wisconsin are in moderate drought conditions. Deep snow cover has been almost non-existent across the area with zero days reported with six (plus) inches of snow cover on the ground in Rockford. During an average winter, that number is usually around 16 days. If we end up going the entire winter season without deep snow cover, six inches or more, it would be the firs time that has happened since the 1986-1987 winter season! Our season to date snowfall has only been 17.6 inches, which is almost 16 inches below the season to date average.
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