ROCKFORD, Ill. (WIFR) – It’s been pleasant but warm so far today across the stateline. You can defiantly feel the humidity in the air with dew points sitting in the mid-60s. Temperatures will climb into the upper 80s to lower 90s this afternoon with a good amount of sunshine expected.
Speaking of this afternoon, we do have some chances for shower and thunderstorm development with a weak disturbance entering the region from Iowa. The coverage of these storms will likely be isolated to scattered thanks to a decently strong atmospheric cap. If any storm does manage to form, there will be plenty of energy and moisture to draw from. With this in mind, a few of these storms could turn strong to severe with hail and winds being the primary threat.
Heading overnight a strong low level jet will continue to transport moisture across the region. This will likely lead to more shower and storm development. However, with these storms, I don’t think any of them will be severe since they won’t have the energy. Overnight lows will stay fairly warm as they bottom out in the middle to upper 60s.
The forecast for Wednesday still has a lot of questions and different scenarios for our afternoon storm chances. There are three key variables in our forecast that would all need to happen for another chance of strong to severe storms to form. The three variable are the timing on when Tuesday night’s storms end, the amount of sunshine we have early in the day Wednesday and finally the timing of the cold front.
If showers and storms from tonight continue into the morning on Wednesday and clouds stick around, our atmosphere won’t have enough time to reenergize, massively reducing our severe storm chances for the afternoon regardless of the cold front timing.
However, if showers and storms wrap up early tonight and we get some sunshine it would allow our atmosphere to regain some energy and instability. Then it comes down to when the cold front would travel across the region. If it comes through just after lunch time, our severe risk would be lower, but if it was delayed an hour or two then our chances would quickly start to rise. All modes of severe are on the table if storms form.
As of now, I think we will likely see some showers and storms continue into the early morning Wednesday, with some storms forming along the cold front in the afternoon with a low risk of anything severe. Temperatures will be considerably cooler with highs in the mid-70s…