Unsettled Valentine's Day, Windy Evening Commute

Unsettled Valentine's Day:

Mother nature is the true MVP as northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin has seen nothing but sun-filled skies and well-above temperatures the past two days. Unfortunately, Valentine's Day will be a bit more unsettled as the first of two storm system slides in from the central plains.  

While our Valentine's Day is off to a quiet start, I'll still be important to pack the umbrella. Light rain showers are expected to slide in shortly before or around mid-day, becoming steady and more widespread as the afternoon progresses. Despite today's cloudiness, temperatures are likely to once again land on either side of the 50° mark thanks to a increasing wind out of the south and southeast.

Windy Evening:

As of 7AM this morning, none of our counties have been placed under some kind of wind alert. However, between the hours of 3PM-10PM, gusts up to 35 to 40 mph will be likely. 

This may make for bumpy travel during the evening commute, especially for those traveling on east and west roadways. Precipitation will begin to break apart this evening, though we’ll keep a chance for scattered light rain into midnight hour. All in all, we're not talking much as far as accumulations are concerned. Most of our spots should wind up between a couple of tenths to a quarter of an inch. Once the rain tapers off, cloudy skies are then expected to stick around into Wednesday morning.

Second Storm:

Since we'll will be sitting in between our early week storm and our late week storm, Wednesday will be a much drier day overall. Clouds dominate our skies early on, with sunshine emerging in a filtered fashion by the afternoon. 

With a more west to northwest tilt in our winds, there will be a slight drop in temperatures, placing highs in the upper 40s. 

Forecast models then bring the second storm system in Wednesday night into early Thursday morning. Unlike our early week storm, this one will a much better shot at bringing a round of wintry precipitation to the region. 

From what I gathered, our late week event will begin as a wintry of rain and snow, with a transition to all snow occurring Thursday afternoon as temperatures fall. Like we said yesterday, it's still early to talk snowfall number. However, make sure to stay up-to-date with the forecast today and tomorrow.