Good afternoon guys!

This is my first post over the system that will be coming into our region early this week. In the last 24 hours there has been a huge shift in snowfall totals with this system on the "up" trend. If someone asked be 24 hours ago, I would have said Champaign would get 4-6 from this, now we are possibly going to receive 9-12 from this system. A big change!

We are going to see one minor round of snow with this system and one major round of snow. The minor round of snow will occur Sunday night, which will start after dusk in IL and will mostly move out by daylight from west to east. Generally 1-4 with this round in central and southern IL. Here's a map of the snow at Midnight Monday morning AND the snowfall forecast for Sunday night. Keep in mind, any "Day/night" snowfall forecasts are 12 hour periods. So, Day forecasts are 6am-6pm and night forecasts are 6pm-6am!

Now, for the main round of snow: Monday and Monday Night.

Forecasts are expected to change but this is based off where the situation stands as of now. 

There will be a break in snow Monday morning as the first road diminishes and continues to move to the east. The snow will start in extreme Southern IL late Monday morning and will continue to move north throughout the day. Very heavy snow can be expected with this round, especially in Southern and east-central IL. 

Below I will have Maps for noon and 6pm Monday as well as a snowfall forecast for Monday.

The heavy snow will continue to move to the northeast. The snow will eventually tapper off from southwest to northeast Monday Night and will be completely out of IL by 6am Tuesday. There's also a lake effect component for the Chicago Lakefront Monday Night so that is also something else to watch for.

Below I will have a Midnight Tuesday morning map, Monday Night forecast, and a TOTAL Snowfall map in general from now until Tuesday. I will have another update Monday Morning!

ALSO, another major system is coming into the Ohio River Valley/Southern App Mountains Wednesday night/Thursday and could bring several inches of snow again to the same areas this system is bringing snow to. Just a heads up!

​Thanks for reading! Stay tuned!

Good morning guys!

This post will be talking about the few snow chances that we will be having in the next week PLUS new developments about the cold next week.

First we have a system pushing into our region today (Thursday). Generally no snow south of I72 and most of the heaver snow (2-3+) will be north of I80, so nothing really for central IL. 

Precip types:
It will be all rain (besides some light snow in the late afternoon) south of I72.

It will be mostly rain with some snow at the end between I72 and I80.

It will be all/mostly all snow north of I80

The snow will start in northwestern IL around 11 and will push its way East and will start in northeastern IL by 3pm. Generally, the snow will be done in western IL by 6pm and eastern IL by around 9pm.

Snowfall Totals:
I will have a snowfall map below but generally, 0-1 inches Highway 136 and south, 1-2 from Highway 136 to I80, 2-4 inches north of I80, and a small area of 4-6 in northwest IL. Although wind won't be a terribly big factor during the day today, although tonight, locations in Northern IL may see gusts 35-40+ mph so some blizzard conditions in those areas that received snow Thursday may see some possible blizzard conditions

Snowfall for Thursday's system

Next, we have two systems after that. One Saturday night and one early next week.

We'll have a couple mini upper level troughs that will bring these small disturbances our way. Below I will have a rough snowfall forecast for Saturday's (evening/night) system, but too far out to tell about early next week's system but generally snow will be possible in the Mid-Mississippi River valley.

Saturday snowfall forecast

​

NOW for the the cold weather next week.

Earlier this week, I had stated that some very cold weather was coming into IL early next week. Although that is still true, due to new disturbances, the cold is somewhat holding off until mid to late next week. After each system, there is another "punch" of cold air into our region. A semi-cold punch after today's system, a cold punch after Saturday's system (cold Sunday and semi-cold Monday), then very cold mid next week after the system early next week. Generally low temps below 0 and highs in the single digits here in central IL late next week. This is still developing, especially since the system early next week is still uncertain but either way we have some cold coming into IL finally next week!

Stay tuned as always!

Good evening guys!

This is my first update for this weekends system that is charging into the mid Mississippi River Valley this weekend. Models have been somewhat consistent over the past 24 hours about the amount of snow that will fall but have not completely aligned with where that will fall, more specifically, where the main Rain/Snow line will set up , but we still have 18 hours or so until the main event starts here in Central IL.

Generally we have a developing low pressure that will shot out of the southern Rockies tonight and will slowly make its way to eastern Kansas/northern Oklahoma Saturday afternoon. I am watching a possible Low severe risk for the areas just to the southeast/south of the main Low Pressure system and my "Day 2 outlook" will be on my outlooks page. Just not enough of about every element for severe weather besides low amounts of everything like Wind Shear and instability.

The precipitation will start here in central IL from West to East during the day Saturday, starting in western IL before 12, and gradually moving northeast word, into East-central IL by 2/3pm. BUT the latest HRRR shows a band of Freezing Rain/Sleet charging into central IL late morning. Something I have to watch in later runs. Most of this will start as mostly Rain, but in east-central IL (and obviously Northern IL once the precip reaches up there), will transition to snow soon after the arrival of rain in the afternoon, it may even start as snow even. That is what the models are not agreeing with at the current time about where the transition is. 

Generally, 7-10 inches for now will be the highest amounts falling in north-central IL, although most of this region will be 6-9, some locally 9-10+amounts are possible. 

The low pressure will make its way into southern IL Saturday night/Sunday morning, which most of the Precip below highway 136 and south will turn to rain and most to the north will stay as snow. After the system passes, some light snow will likely cover central IL Sunday afternoon for a minimal accumulation of less than a inch or so.

For now I will include my forecast as well as a map indicating what areas will receive what in turns of precip. Thanks and Stay tuned for more!

Current Snowfall Forecast

Precipitation map

Good afternoon!

This is my last post over today's storm. This morning I posted a couple maps on my Facebook as I did not have time to create a post due to the first day of classes today! This is a more detailed update than that one this morning since I have had some time free up this afternoon!

This morning here in Champaign we received less than an inch of snow with a brief window of precipitation this morning. other areas received some ice to the south and west but the precipitation this morning did not go north of I72 in Illinois for the most part as expected. This is the only snowfall that the I72 corridor will see during the whole event besides possibly a dusting at the tail end of the event midday Tuesday. 

It is currently 2:30 in the afternoon and the first snow bands are starting to come across the Mississippi River into West-central IL (more specifically the Rock Island/Mercer/Henderson/Warren/Knox county areas). Expect this to continue moving eastward and "fill in" the entire north third of IL by 7pm or so this evening. This will continue as light to moderate snow overnight and into the morning on Tuesday. The Snow will generally tapper off from West to East and IL should generally be in the clear by Tuesday afternoon.

The snowfall forecasts have generally stayed the same today for the most part, besides maybe move a tad to the north. There is a possibility that the Chicago metro area may see 6-8 due to a small enhancement affect from the lake, but we will see. The HRRR picks up on that and the NAM does not.  

Below is my Snowfall forecast: 

As I discussed in my first post. There will be an ice component to this system as well. Generally in IL this area will encompass everything between I72 and Highway 24. This small region should receive around a tenth to two tenths of Ice during this system but a few localized areas of upwards of a three tenths of an inch of Ice is possible. Here is that area of concern below. Some areas to the north May receive some Ice (mostly Sleet) as well but the main concern will be that area between the I72 and Highway 24 corridors. 

Below I will attach a few of the models snowfall maps and precipitation maps at Midnight Monday Night. Also watching a small disturbance Wednesday that could bring 0-2 inches to the Central and Southern IL regions. Stay tuned! Thanks for reading!

HRRR Snowfall 

HRRR Midnight Monday Night

NAM Midnight Monday Night

Good evening guys!

In this post I will mostly talk about the system that will be tracking into the mid-Mississippi River Valley early next week but I will briefly touch on the weakening system coming into our region tonight (Saturday night). Also, I will have 1-2 updates Sunday (for sure Sunday evening) over Monday's system on here as well. 

Generally 0-1 inches of snow from I72 and north in IL, and generally .5-2 north of I80 in northern IL. Also a glaze of ice is possible in Central IL but nothing more than that. Most of this will come late Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.

The much bigger event comes Monday Morning into our region. There's a Low pressure system that will make it's way out of the Ark/La/Tx region Monday morning and shot up to the northeast into the Ozarks region by Monday afternoon. This system starts to lose it's strength into Tuesday over the Eastern Midwest, I would assume due to the occlusion or the weakening of the upper level trough but I hadn't looked into that much yet. 

Precip should start in central IL Monday morning and Snow should start in Northern IL (for now) around or just after noon on Monday, with the heaviest snow Monday evening. I will have start times in a later post when this event becomes a little more clear. 

First, here's a general "what to expect" of this system map I made:

There is that area of uncertainty where it will likely be a mix/ice in central IL but could/will change mostly to rain by the peak of the system as it moves across our area Monday evening. Some models like the NAM pick up with more Freezing Rain event for that region and the HRRR has a much slimmer area of mix/Ice and has more Rain for that middle region. 

Below I have a "guess" for the Snowfall totals but this is going to change in the next 24 hours I am sure: 

Next I have a general map with areas that may see ice during this event. Nothing clear yet since the models are not agreeing with each other yet but we will see what changes in the next 24 hours!

Now I will show some of the models and what they are showing. The model and the type will be below each picture:

NAM snowfall totals

GFS snowfall totals

NAM Freezing Rain (Ice) Totals

NAM model at 4pm on Monday

That is all for now. As always message me or leave a comment if you guys have any questions! Much more to come tomorrow when the models agree more with one another and there's multiple I can look through as well. Also a weak system will be coming through mid-week that may dump a couple inches in southern IL that I will continue to watch! Stay tuned! 

This is my update for the Winter weather for New Years Day.

There is still some model disagreement with the winter storm tomorrow morning. Overall a good swath of ice in the mid Mississippi River valley as well as some snow as well. 

First I will discuss what causes Freezing Rain/Sleet/Snow. 

Here in the first weather sounding shows Freezing Rain. In all pictures, the diagonal purple line shows the freezing line, and the red circle shows temperatures above freezing and the blue circles show below freezing temperatures. With this one (compare this with the others), this shows a large warm, inversion layer  above the surface with a slim area of below freezing at the surface. Here's the picture below 

Next I have the sounding with Sleet. This shows a small inversion layer in the mid levels, barely above freezing, with the rest after it between that and the surface below freezing, as seen below 

Here is a sounding with snow, which shows the temperatures below freezing the entire sounding!

NOW for the forecast:

This is still very tricky to do but I'll give it a shot. 

Generally across central IL, totals for ice will be .1-.3 with some high totals possible/likely. There's a lot of factors that go into this so a small change can be the different between a glaze and an inch of ice. These totals are the amount of ice accumulated before rain changes and settles in. Here is the ice and snow totals below. The large snow amounts of snow is where snow is the main form of precipitation, and the lesser amounts in central IL is snow that falls Friday afternoon after the rain. 

Here are the forecast start times of freezing precipitation as well

Thanks for reading and hopefully this does not become as bad as some models are showing it at the moment!

Good evening!

This will be my first post on my sight. I decided back in November to make a weather blog section of my site where I can share my briefings and forecasts instead of cluttering my Facebook with them and I can actually find them when I want to go back and revisit the briefings, plus it's somewhat easier to do this way!

We have an interesting system coming into the Midwest here on New Year's Day, 2021. There's a potential of a possible Ice Storm here in some areas. There are still some uncertainties which will become clearer during the day Thursday, in which I will make another post Thursday evening when the models have more of an agreement.

Generally, the system arrives Thursday night into Arkansas and moves northeast into the lower Wabash River region Friday afternoon. Freezing Rain will start out about anywhere in IL, depending on where you are. The Freezing Rain will start along the I72 corridor around 4-6am Friday morning. All models have it changing to rain at some point but whether it rains most of the time (Track 1) or very little of the time (which means much more freezing rain, Track 2) is still uncertain. 

Track 1, which the NAM seems to have stayed with, depicts a system that tracks more north, in which case shifts the area of freezing rain concern more to the north. Here's a map I created below showing this.
​

Track 2, which the HRRR and RAP are sticking with, tracks the system more south, in which case shifts the area of Freezing Rain more to the south. Here's a map below I made. 

This is where things stand right now with this system. I will have another update Thursday Night, and hopefully there will be more agreement by then. There is also a possibility of some light snow in central IL Saturday night that is still unclear as well!

Thanks for reading!

Colin Dobson