More widespread rain and spotty storms through Tuesday

 It's been a wet Sunday in the Stateline, with finally a period of meaningful rain to try and pull us out of the drought we are in. Round 1 of the rain is lifting North into Wisconsin this evening, with a short break in the steady showers for much of the evening and night. Widespread steady rain returns early Monday morning.

Already some spots West of I-39 have seen over 0.5" of rain, as the best moisture remained West of Rockford through the morning hours along the first wave of rain. More rain is on the way to fill in some of those gaps East of I-39.

We have a few more windows of rain on the way. Following the short break Sunday evening, steady rain will return Monday morning. Another drop in coverage will return scattered showers for the afternoon, leading to many dry daytime hours Monday. Monday night into Tuesday will be the main focus for any heavy rain with embedded thunderstorms.

The next wave of steady rain arrives late tonight/early Monday morning with a rumble or two of thunder possible within this window. Rainfall coverage drops during the afternoon, but high amounts of moisture will keep cloud cover thick and spotty showers around. Any breaks in the clouds may bring a little bit of instability, or storm energy, ahead of the next round Monday night.

Monday into Tuesday will be the main focus for the heaviest rain and a few storms. If even small amounts of instability develop from any peeks of sunshine Monday afternoon, some embedded storms during this window could become strong to severe. Confidence on this is very low at this time, but given the strong dynamics aloft, it wouldn't take much energy to produce an isolated strong storm. Rainfall becomes scattered again into Tuesday as the trailing cold front approaches. Once the front passes Tuesday evening, rain will come to an end. Temperatures will remain in the 60s throughout almost all of the time the rain is falling, but will drop into the low 40s overnight Tuesday behind the cold front.

All told, some locations could see an additional 1-3" of rainfall, especially across North Central and Northeastern Illinois into Southeastern Wisconsin. The heaviest axis of rain may only be a few counties wide Monday night, so the predictability of where the most rain will fall is low at this time. For now, the highest chance of this will be along a line from Sterling, IL up into Walworth County, WI. If the majority of this rain falls within the Monday night-Tuesday morning window, there could be a risk for flooding concerns, primarily in low-lying and poor drainage areas.