Thursday’s cold front has pushed well to the south, settling across southern Illinois. Temperatures south of the front warmed into 70s while north of the front temperatures were in the 40s. The day started off with plenty of cloud cover, but we did manage to see sunshine for a time during the afternoon. Clouds will continue to stream in from the southwest turning our skies partly to mostly cloudy. Overnight lows will fall on either side of 30 degrees.

The dry weather will carry over into the afternoon Friday but the chance for rain will soon return by evening. Low pressure lifting into the Midwest from the central Plains will pull the cold front back north into central and northern Illinois. It’ll also draw in quite a bit of gulf moisture with it. Rain will begin to move in from the south after 7pm, overspreading much of the area through 10pm. As temperatures begin to cool across southern Wisconsin, a transition over to a wet snow will occur. This will take place around Midnight.

As temperatures continue to cool the transition over from rain to snow will begin to move further south, with a heavy and wet snow likely falling for the entire region during the predawn hours of Saturday. Temperatures in the low 30s during the night, and low 40s during the day, may limit overall accumulations but several inches of slushy snow are possible. The favored area appears to be north-central Illinois and south-central/southeast Wisconsin.

We may see the snow mix back in with some light rain through Noon on Saturday before clearing out Saturday night. Some impacts to Saturday morning are likely, especially if we see any accumulations. The track of the storm system may still shift a little and this will ultimately have an impact on when, and how much, snow we could potentially see. There are currently no winter weather headlines in effect as of Thursday evening, but it is likely that at least an advisory gets issued for parts of the area for Friday night and early Saturday morning. Those with travel plans should pay close attention to the forecast going into the weekend.