Cooler trend settles in this week with few weather systems to watch

 It was a snowy Thursday morning for some in the Stateline, with bursts of heavy snow lasting into the early afternoon for some. All told, our first measurable snowfall of the season was a healthy amount, with snowfall reports mostly between 1-2" along and East of I-39. The Rockford airport only recorded 0.6", on top of 0.2" from Wednesday night. Most of this snow has melted now, as temperatures rose to flip us over to rain during the afternoon.

Some spotty showers will stick around through the evening, turning more to patches of drizzle through midnight or so. We will slowly dry out overnight, but the cloud cover will remain locked in place. This will allow temperatures to remain steady or even warm a degree or two overnight.

Temperatures will not warm much over the next three days as cloud cover remains thick. Low to mid-40s for highs Friday and Saturday, under overcast and mostly cloudy skies respectively. Sunday will bring a return to overcast skies, with a slim chance for some rain showers late. Those may linger into Monday before moving out.

With next week being a big travel week, lots of attention will be placed on upcoming weather patterns. Aside from the few showers Sunday into Monday, there is another weather system on the way for late next week. This could arrive between Wednesday and Friday, right through a significant travel window of the holiday. There has been a signal for some snowfall on the Northern edge of this system, but it is still almost a week out, so pinpointing where that will occur is hard to do this far out. For now, the takeaway is to keep an eye on trends and stay tuned to the forecast for how this system may play out next week!

One thing there is a lot more confidence about is a big-time cool down into the end of the month and start of December. This outlook from the Climate Prediction Center indicates a 70-80% chance that we will see below average temperatures between the 29th of November and 5th of December. The darker colors don't necessarily indicate magnitude of the cold, but rather the confidence in a cooler than normal pattern. Average high temperatures that time of year are near 40° for highs and mid-20s for lows.

You can see that cooler pattern begin to settle in by the end of the 7-day, with numerous highs in the 30s leading up to Thanksgiving, while overnight lows may flirt with the 20s for a few nights.