Happy New Year! A strong cold front sweeping through Wednesday gave us one last chance for snow before we turned the page on 2025. In the end, the Rockford Airport ended up with 0.1".
The passage of this cold front will spell cooler times for the start of the new year, much cooler than the 50° weather we saw this past Sunday. In fact, highs will end up roughly 30° cooler, landing in the upper teens. With a light northwest wind in place, wind chills will be in the upper single digits and lower teens.
Cloud cover will increase as the morning progresses as a weak disturbance pushes into the western Great Lakes. This may bring enough moisture for flurries during the midday hours, especially in locales north and east of the Rockford metro.
Areas like Janesville, Lake Geneva, and Delavan may see accumulations up to .5". From there, cloud cover will hang tight for the hours of the evening commute and into the first half of the night. Overnight lows are expected to fall into the low teens.
Sunshine makes its well-anticipated return Friday, though in a partial fashion. Despite winds being out of the northwest, the additional sun should help push afternoon highs back into the low 20s.
A fairly dry weekend lies ahead as an area of high pressure dives in from the Upper Midwest. Skies will be mostly cloudy for the most part, with the only chance for precipitation occurring late Saturday into Sunday. Highs will be end up close to what we see tomorrow, in the mid to upper 20s.
Once this high pressure system slides to our east, warmer flow to take hold of the central U.S. This will bring highs back into the upper 30s Monday, then possibly up to 40
° mark Tuesday. We look to remain in the upper 30s for Wednesday.
