Ahead of our next impactful storm system, the National Weather Service has placed a few of our counties under winter weather alerts.
Jo-Daviess County has been placed under a Winter Storm Watch from late tonight through Thursday afternoon. Up in southern Wisconsin, Green and Rock Counties have been put under a Winter Weather Advisory from Thursday morning to Thursday evening. With forecast models coming in with a slight eastward shift with the more impactful snow accumulation, we'll see if they end up placing a few more of our counties under winter weather alerts.
Fortunately, the messy weather that's associated with this storm system doesn't look to commence until early tonight. In fact, the only concern with today's forecast is that there may be a bit of fog during the morning commute hours.
Once this morning's patchy dense fog lets up, the rest of our Wednesday will remain dry, with cloud cover thickening up during the afternoon. This will leave us under a mostly cloudy to overcast sky by the time sunset rolls around. Temperature-wise, the combination of today's filtered sun and light south to southeast wind will bring us back into the low to mid 40s. In a similar fashion to Tuesday, that lands us almost 15° above early-February standards.
Timing Out The Storm:
Guidance shows widespread rain moving in from the south and southwest sometime between 10PM-midnight. From there, rain will continue and could be heavy at times, especially as we inch closer to Thursday's morning commute.
As we've been hinting at, cooler air wrapping around the low's center will allow for a quick opportunity for a rain/snow mix, followed by a changeover to all snow. Rainfall totals as the changeover occurs will be ranging from .75"-1.25", with a few isolated 1.50" reports. Winds also will become an issue Thursday, especially during the afternoon hours where gusts could approach 40 mph. As of this morning, there isn't any wind alerts in place for our area. But bumpy travel can be expected for those who travel in a high-profile vehicle.
What's different? Forecast models this morning did show a southeast wobble in the overall track of our late week storm system. This means that some of the heavier totals that take place to the west have inched a bit closer to the Stateline.
With that being said, there is still time for the forecast to change. I think we'll have a better idea on how much snow to expect by this evening. But for right now, the heaviest totals are still expected to place to the north and west of Rockford. A few snow showers will linger into early Friday before we fully dry out Friday evening. Conditions aim to stay quiet over Super Bowl weekend, with temps climbing back into the low 40s.
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