Showers and thunderstorms affected the area today which produced a few strong thunderstorms that affected a portion of the Sauk Valley. Our atmosphere across the Sauk Valley was very conditional, while winds favored decent backing our CAPE and dew points struggled due to insufficient heating across the region as clouds were present for much of the day. A few peaks of sunshine allowed strong thunderstorms to develop and move northeast through the area. One storm in particular traveled through Whiteside County and eventually produced 0.88″ hailstones in Mount Morris just northeast of our coverage area. With that, storm coverage continued to dwindle as storms rolled through allowing severe thunderstorm watch #138 to be canceled in Whiteside county. Storms continued to develop southwest of Lee county which kept the watch in effect. Eventually after storms moved through Lee county producing heavy rainfall, the watch was canceled.
Below is a chart showing storm reports across northern and parts of central Illinois. Much of the threat was early in the day where the first severe thunderstorm took place to our east in Will & Cook county. Here, hail reports came in ranging between 0.25″ and 1.75″. The larger stones were reported in Kendall county. No severe thunderstorm warnings took place across Whiteside or Lee county, as our threat was minimal and quite conditional. Below shows all storm reports for the time 12PM to 6PM.
Moving forward our temperatures for Tuesday will not be quite as warm as today was. We’ll have sporadic temperatures across the region today with the western area being a bit more mild than eastern Lee county. We’ll continue to have a few gusty conditions throughout the morning and midday with gusts up to 15-20MPH at times. Otherwise, west winds will eventually shift towards the northwest and calm down by the late evening hours.
For Wednesday we’ll keep some sunshine throughout the day along with increasing clouds late. Calm southerly winds will allow temperatures to rise across the area into the mid 60s. Rain is then back in the forecast overnight Wednesday through Thursday morning where we will dry up once again.
We’ll keep rain chances in the forecast, chances will remain low Thursday night, but rain chances will increase Friday through Saturday night before we dry up Sunday. Temperatures through the week won’t be cold, but remain in the upper 60s after Tuesday. Sunshine returns on Sunday with temperatures remaining around 70.
No severe weather is anticipated for the remainder of the work week.
