Security cameras capture Mobile, AL tornado

Security cameras at a Walgreens captured the tornado that ripped through Mobile, AL on Christmas Day. Notice the cars still on the road, someone in their vehicle in the parking lot and the customers in the store. Too close if you ask me. That's why it's so importmant to have a severe weather plan in place and know what to do when severe weather strikes!

Orange Bowl Travel Forecast

Heading down to Miami to check out the Huskies play Florida State at the Orange Bowl New Year's Day? This post is for you! Fortunately, it doesn't look like there will be many travel issues for anyone going to the game.

Let's start with Thursday. With the Ohio Valley dealing with a major snowstorm today, there could still be snowy roads and slick spots in parts of southern Illinois, Indiana, and western Kentucky. Just take it easy if you're hitting the roads early.

A few snow showers are possible Friday for the Stateline, but it shouldn't cause any major travel headaches for those heading to Florida.

A few showers will also be possible to our south Friday and Saturday, but once again, it doesn't look like it will cause any major travel headaches.

Sunday through New Year's Day is looking pretty quiet for everyone, meaning anyone heading to the game at the last second should be fine.

As for the game itself, it's looking like pretty standard Miami weather for the start of 2013 and the kickoff of the Orange Bowl. Looks for highs around 80 and plenty of sun. Kickoff temps will be in the low 70s with a shower possible later in the evening.

Chance of Freezing Drizzle & Light Snow Today

A weak disturbance may cause a little light snow and freezing drizzle through the early afternoon.  The surface map shows a weak low over southern Indiana with a trough of low pressure stretching northwest from the low across northern Illinois into southeastern Minnesota.  Circulation around the low will cause winds to be northeast around 10 mph today.  The skies will be cloudy today with a high in the low 30's.  It will remain mostly cloudy overnight, and the low will be in the low 20's.  A massive ridge of arctic high pressure extends southward out of Canada through the Dakotas, eastern Nebraska, eastern Kansas, across Oklahoma into central Texas.  The extremely cold weather associated with the ridge remains limited to Montana, the Dakotas, into northwestern Minnesota where temperatures were -5 to -10 early this morning.  The good thing is that there does not seem to be any indication that the severe cold will move into northern Illinois.  Temperatures this week will be pretty close to seasonal averages.  It will continue to be mostly cloudy on Christmas Day with a high around 26 degrees.  The wind will pick up from the north at 10-15 mph.  The southern jet stream will activate, and start to spin up a storm system over east central Texas early Christmas morning.  The low will intensify as it moves to western Mississippi by 6 pm on Christmas Day, and it will be very intense by the time it moves to north central Tennessee by 6 am Wednesday.  Winter Storm Watches have been issued from Oklahoma eastward across northern Arkansas, southern Missouri, southeastern Illinois, across Indiana into western Ohio, and south central lower Michigan.  Heavy snow could occur anywhere in those areas.  Because of the intensity of the low, and the tight pressure gradient between the low and the arctic ridge over Minnesota, strong northerly winds will buffet the Stateline on Wednesday.  It will be cloudy, but no snow is expected across northern Illinois on Wednesday.  The storm will continue to speed off to the northeast on Thursday spreading strong winds, and heavy snow across northern Ohio, northwestern Pennsylvania, and most of New York State into parts of New England.  It will remain mostly cloudy on Thursday in northern Illinois with a high in the middle 20's.  The wind will die down as the ridge moves over the area.  On Friday low pressure will develop again over Texas.  An inverted trough of low pressure will extend northeast  of the low into Iowa early Friday morning.  It will become cloudy as the trough approaches, and there is a chance of some light snow with a high in the low 30's.  The trough will move across the  area on Friday night with a good chance of some snow.  Clouds will persist on Saturday with a continuing chance of light snow.  The high will be in the upper 20's.  High pressure will take control in Sunday.  It will be partly cloudy and cold with a high around 24 degrees.

Winter storm will affect holiday travel this upcoming week

While not a direct impact on us, a winter storm looks to affect parts of the Mid-Mississippi, Tennessee and Ohio River Valleys the day after Christmas bringing snow and possible thunderstorms as it moves through.  Low pressure will develop in the southern Plains early this week and track through Louisiana, Kentucky and Tennessee by Tuesday night and Wednesday morning.  While the track of this storm the past couple days has been fairly consistent with remaining to the south, there is still the potential for a northward shift which could bring some snow into parts of Illinois by Wednesday night.  There will, however, likely be lake effect snow for Chicago so if you're traveling to or from that area keep that in mind.


European Model
Wednesday morning at 6am

Here are two solutions from the GFS and European model for Wednesday morning.  The dashed blue line on the graphic to the left is the freezing line.  A general rule of thumb is any precipitation (green on the map) falling north of the line would fall as snow or a wintry mix and any precipitation falling south of that dashed blue line would fall as rain. 

GFS Model
Wednesday morning at 6am

The GFS model depicts the developing low a little stronger than the European and slightly further north/northwest.  Same concept as before, any precipitation falling where there are dashed blue lines would be snow and any precipitation falling where there are dashed red lines would be rain.  If the track continues to shift further north and northwest this could mean an increased probability of snow east and southeast of Rockford.  Either way, travel the day after Christmas will be greatly impacted for those trying to get home - even if the storm doesn't directly impact the Stateline.

On a side note:  Another system worth watching will be one coming towards the end of this upcoming week; Friday and Saturday.  Another low pressure system looks to develop late this week and track near or slightly south of the area Friday night and into Saturday morning.  If that trend continues we may have more snow to deal with for the upcoming weekend.

No Major Weather Systems For The Next Few Days

It looks as if the cold weather has settled in for awhile.  After the first 20 days of December being above normal... way above, in fact, averaging 12 degrees above normal, the last 2 days have been cooler than normal, and it looks as if this will continue for most of the Christmas Holiday week. The normal high temperatures during the next week are close to 30 degrees, and the normal lows are in the middle teens.  Tonight the temperature will drop of to near 14 degrees with light winds, and mostly clear skies.  On Sunday the high will be in the upper 20's under mostly sunny skies in the morning.  Skies will become partly cloudy in the afternoon.  It will become mostly cloudy with a low pressure system moving from the southern plains into Arkansas.  An inverted trough of low pressure extending northward from the low over southern Illinois on Monday morning could bring some light snow or flurries to the Stateline on Monday morning.  That system will continue to move off to the east leaving skies mostly cloudy on Christmas Eve.  The low Christmas morning will be in the middle teens.  It will be partly sunny and a little colder on Christmas Day with northerly winds, and a high in the middle 20's.  It will be mostly cloudy, breezy, and cold on Wednesday as a strong storm system spins up over eastern Tennessee.  The high will be only around 23 degrees on Wednesday with a brisk northeasterly wind.  The Canadian ridge of high pressure stretching southward across the plains will feed quite cold air into northern Illinois on Wednesday night with the low dropping to around 10 degrees, and the high on Thursday will only be around 21 degrees.  The cold ridge will shift of to the east across the Great Lakes on Friday as low pressure develops over the southern plains.  It will be mostly cloudy with a chance of some snow.  Chances of snow will continue on Saturday as the low moves northeast toward Chicago.

Winter Weather Streaks Finally In The Books

Thursday's winter storm and Friday's cold blast help put an end to two streaks Rockford had going heading into the start of winter.

The first you're probably familiar with. Our snow drought ended Thursday, after 290 days without measurable snow. That streak is the new record holder, beating our old record of 287 days back in 1922.

The other record was not as publicized. Friday's high of 30 marks the first time this cool season we had a high below the freezing mark. The only time it took Rockford longer to hit a sub-freezing high was 2001.

This second streak is relevant from a historical perspective. Pretty much every other year in the top five saw warmer than average temps for the rest of the winter, along with less than average snow. Will that be the case this year? Wait and see!

A Recap Of Our Blizzard

Our first winter storm of the season has come and gone, and while strong winds made the most headlines and caused plenty of problems for everyone, some of our snow totals were also pretty impressive. Here's a recap:

Illinois: Northwestern Illinois saw the heaviest snow from this storm, but everyone saw at least a little bit of the white stuff Thursday. Lena in Stephenson County had the highest snow total in Illinois, checking in at a foot.

Wind gusts topped 50mph in many spots, with Steward in Lee County seeing the highest gust on Thursday... 60mph.

THE FOLLOWING ARE SNOW AMOUNTS FOR THE PREVIOUS 24-HOURS TAKEN BY
NWS COOPERATIVE...COCORAHS...CAST...AND RAST OBSERVERS. OBSERVATIONS
ARE USUALLY TAKEN AT 7 AM.


NORTHERN ILLINOIS                              SNOW
  LOCATION (COUNTY):                           FALL(INCHES)

  MOUNT MORRIS (OGLE)...........................4.4
  MACHESNEY PARK 3ENE (WINNEBAGO)...............4.0
  ROCKTON 1ESE (WINNEBAGO)......................3.6
  CAPRON (BOONE)................................3.5
  ROCKFORD 3NE (WINNEBAGO)......................3.5
  ROCKFORD 2ENE (WINNEBAGO).....................3.5
  ROSCOE 2ESE (WINNEBAGO).......................3.2
  ROSCOE 2SE (WINNEBAGO)........................3.2
  PAW PAW (LEE).................................3.0
  ROCKFORD 4NW (WINNEBAGO)......................2.8
  WOODSTOCK (MCHENRY)...........................2.3
  HARVARD (MCHENRY).............................2.3
  ROCKFORD 1NW (WINNEBAGO)......................2.0
  GENOA (DE KALB)...............................1.9
  HUNTLEY 4W (MCHENRY)..........................1.9
  BULL VALLEY 2WNW (MCHENRY)....................1.8
  HARVARD (MCHENRY).............................1.5
  ALGONQUIN 1N (MCHENRY)........................1.4
  ROCKFORD (WINNEBAGO)..........................1.4
  SPRING GROVE 2N (MCHENRY).....................1.4
  BYRON 3N (OGLE)...............................1.3
  WONDER LAKE 1WNW (MCHENRY)....................0.9
  MCHENRY (MCHENRY).............................0.8
  DE KALB (DE KALB).............................0.7
  DIXON 2SW (LEE)...............................0.7
  WOODSTOCK 2WSW (MCHENRY)......................0.7
  WOODSTOCK 5NW (MCHENRY).......................0.7
  CORTLAND (DE KALB)............................0.6
  DIXON 3NNW (LEE)..............................0.5
  AMBOY (LEE)...................................0.4
  STEWARD (LEE).................................0.4
  DE KALB (DE KALB).............................0.1
  SUBLETTE (LEE)..............................TRACE

Wisconsin: The Stateline part of Wisconsin say plenty of snow, but the heaviest totals were closer to Madison. At last check, parts of Monroe and Janesville saw anywhere between 7-9" of snow.




Here are some more observations from the Quad Cities NWS, which covers the western part of the viewing area:

....ILLINOIS....
Apple Rvr Cnyn SP                11.0
Elizabeth                         6.8
Galena                            5.0
Freeport                          5.0
Roscoe 2SE                        3.2
Paw Paw 1 E                       3.0
Freeport 2.0 NW                   2.5
Rockford ASOS                     1.4
Steward                           0.4
Romeoville                        0.2