​(10:15PM - 1/16/21) A fast moving disturbance will move through the region tonight through Sunday night, bringing a minor/nuisance accumulating snowfall to a large portion of the state.

​Summary...
A fast moving and potent disturbance will move through the region tonight through Sunday night. An associated area of snow and snow showers will spread across the state from tonight/very early Sunday morning through Sunday night. Model guidance has been and continues to be in good agreement regarding this event. As has been the case with the past few updates, little to no change was needed with this update.

​Forecast...
​Areas of snow and snow showers will develop across Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin and Northwest Illinois tonight. This activity will then spread eastward across a large portion of the state, from tonight/very early Sunday morning through Sunday night. Activity will generally remain on the light or showery side for the duration of the event.​ This disturbance will be working with a limited amount of moisture, thus snowfall totals will remain on the minor/light side.

​What's Expected...
Final snowfall totals upwards of a dusting to 1.5" or so are expected across a large portion of the state. A corridor of locally higher amounts will be possible across portions of Northern/Central Illinois.

​Below is the snowfall forecast for this event.

(11:45AM - 1/16/21) A fast moving disturbance will move through the region on Sunday, bringing a minor/nuisance accumulating snowfall to a large portion of the state.

​Summary...
A fast moving and potent disturbance will move through the region on Sunday. An associated area of snow and snow showers will spread across the state from late tonight/very early Sunday morning through Sunday night. Model guidance has and continues to be in good agreement regarding this event. As has been the case with the past few updates, little to no change was needed with this update.

​Forecast...
​Areas of snow and snow showers will develop across Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin this evening and tonight. This activity will then spread southeastward across a large portion of the state, from late tonight/very early Sunday morning through Sunday night. Activity will generally remain on the light to showery side for the duration of the event.​ This disturbance will be working with a limited amount of moisture, thus snowfall totals will remain on the minor/light side.

​What's Expected...
Final snowfall totals upwards of a dusting to 1.5" or so are expected across a large portion of the state. A corridor of locally higher amounts will be possible across portions of Northern/Central Illinois.

​Below is the snowfall forecast for this event.

JP

(10:30PM - 1/15/21) A fast moving disturbance will move through the region on Sunday, bringing a minor/nuisance snowfall to a large portion of the state.

​Summary...
A fast moving and potent disturbance will move through the region on Sunday. An associated area of snow and snow showers will spread across the state from very early Sunday morning through Sunday night. Model guidance has and continues to be in good agreement regarding this event. Little change was needed with this update.

Forecast...
​Areas of snow and snow showers will develop across Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin Saturday evening and Saturday night. This activity will then spread southeastward across a large portion of the state, from very early Sunday morning through Sunday night. Activity will generally remain on the light to showery side for the duration of the event.​ This disturbance will be moving working with a limited amount of moisture, thus snowfall totals will remain on the minor/light side.

​What's Expected...
Final snowfall totals upwards of a dusting to 1.5" or so are expected across a large portion of the state.

​Below is the snowfall forecast for this event.

JP

(11:45AM - 1/15/21) A fast moving disturbance will move through the region on Sunday, bringing a minor/nuisance snowfall to a large portion of the state.

​Summary...
A fast moving and potent disturbance will move through the region on Sunday. Associated will be an area of snow and snow showers, which will spread across the state form very early Sunday morning through Sunday night.

Forecast...
​Areas of snow and snow showers will develop across Minnesota, Iowa and Wisconsin Saturday evening and Saturday night. This activity will then spread southeastward across a large portion of the state, from very early Sunday morning through Sunday night. Activity will generally remain on the light to showery side for the duration of the event.​ This disturbance will be moving working with a limited amount of moisture, thus snowfall totals will remain on the minor/light side.

​What's Expected...
Final snowfall totals upwards of a dusting to 1.5" or so are expected across a large portion of the state.

​Below is the snowfall forecast for this event.

JP

(11:45AM - 1/14/21) A storm system will move through the region today through Saturday, bringing a minor/nuisance accumulating snowfall to a large portion of the state.

Summary...
A developing storm system is moving into the Midwest today. This storm system will quickly becoming occluded and vertically stacked as it meanders around the Midwest today through Friday, eventually sliding through the Great Lakes on Saturday. A shield of precipitation developing this morning across Iowa and Missouri will spread across the state on this afternoon into tonight, as the storm system initially moves into the region. As the storm system occludes and becomes vertically stacked, precipitation will continue to wrap around the storm system and across a large portion of the state, tonight through Saturday early night. A period of rain is expected along the front portion of the precipitation shield today, before changing to snow for the rest of the event for affected areas. After the model guidance discrepancies the past several days, guidance came to agreement on a solution late yesterday, and that agreement has continued. With this update there was little in the way of change needed from our previous update Wednesday night.

Forecast...
​A shield of precipitation developing this morning across Iowa and Missouri will spread across the state, from this afternoon into tonight. Precipitation will initially start as period of rain for the state, before steadily changing over to snow across Northern and Central Illinois later this afternoon into early tonight. Behind the aforementioned initial shield of precipitation, periods of snow and snow showers are then expected across Northern and Central Illinois from tonight into early Saturday night, as the storm system becomes occluded and vertically stacked. Periods of snow and snow showers are also expected across Southern Illinois, Friday morning into early Saturday night. All snow with this event will come to an end across the state early Saturday night.

​What's Expected...
Final snowfall totals upwards of 1-3" are expected across portions of far Northern Illinois, with a dusting to 1.5" or so expected across the rest of the state.

​Below is the snowfall forecast for this event.

JP

(10:00PM - 1/13/21) A storm system will move through the region Thursday through Saturday, bringing a minor/nuisance accumulating snowfall to a large portion of the state.

Summary...
A storm system is expected to develop in the Midwest on Thursday, quickly becoming occluded and vertically stacked as it meanders around the Midwest Thursday through Friday, eventually sliding through the Great Lakes on Saturday. A shield of precipitation that develops out west will spread across the state on Thursday, as the storm system initially moves into the region. As the storm system occludes and becomes vertically stacked, precipitation will continue to wrap around the storm system and across a large portion of the state, Thursday into Saturday. A period of rain is expected along the front portion of the precipitation shield on Thursday, before changing to snow for the rest of the event for affected areas. Model guidance has been all over the board with this storm system the past several days, but guidance has finally started to converge on a general outcome. With our initial forecast this morning we hedged towards what was a small consensus for a minor/nuisance accumulating snowfall for portions of the state, and given model trends through the day, it appears that was a good call...As model guidance is converging on a scenario which keeps the storm system tracking and meandering to our north/west, which would keep any snowfall on the minor side.

​Forecast...
​A shield of precipitation that develops out west will first spread across the state, from Thursday morning into Thursday night. It is likely that precipitation will initially start as period of rain for Northern and Central Illinois Thursday morning through Thursday afternoon/evening, before steadily changing over to snow Thursday evening/night. Behind the aforementioned initial shield of precipitation, periods of snow and snow showers are then expected across Northern and Central Illinois from Thursday night into Saturday afternoon, as the storm system becomes occluded and vertically stacked. Snow showers will possibly even make it into Southern Illinois, Friday morning into Saturday afternoon. Periods of snow and snow showers across the state will come to and end by Saturday evening.

​What's Expected...
Final snowfall totals upwards of 1-3" are expected across portions of far Northern Illinois, tapering to a dusting to 1.5" or so across the rest of the state.

​Below is the snowfall forecast for this event.

JP

(11:45AM - 1/13/21) A storm system will move through the region Thursday through Saturday, bringing the chance for a minor accumulating snowfall to portions of the state.

​Summary...
A storm system is expected to develop in the Midwest on Thursday, quickly becoming occluded and vertically stacked as it meanders around the Midwest Thursday through Friday, eventually sliding through the Great Lakes on Saturday. A shield of precipitation that develops out west will spread across the state on Thursday, as the storm system initially moves into the region. As the storm system occludes and becomes vertically stacked, precipitation will continue to wrap around the storm system and across a large portion of the state, Thursday into Saturday. A period of rain/snow/sleet is expected along the front portion of the precipitation shield on Thursday, before changing to snow for the rest of the event for affected areas. Model guidance has been all over the board with this storm system the past several days. Even at this time approximately 24 hours out from the start of the event, there is a large spread in solutions, ranging from a relatively minor event across portions of the state to a more moderate event across portions of the state. With this first forecast, we have gone with the slight consensus, which supports a minor snow event for portions of the state. However, it needs to be stressed that given the large amount of uncertainty and spread in model guidance, changes are quite possible in future updates.

​Forecast...
​A shield of precipitation that develops out west will first spread across the state, from Thursday morning into Thursday evening. It is likely that precipitation will initially start as period of rain or a mix for Northern and Central Illinois, before steadily changing over to snow. Behind the aforementioned initial shield of precipitation, periods of snow and snow showers are then expected across Northern and Central Illinois from Thursday evening into Saturday evening, as the storm system becomes occluded and vertically stacked. Snow showers will possibly even make it into Southern Illinois, Friday afternoon into Saturday afternoon. Periods of snow and snow showers across the state will coe to and end by early Saturday night.

​What's Expected...
Final snowfall totals upwards of 1-3" are expected across portions of Northern Illinois, to a dusting to 1" or so across much of the rest of the state.

​Below is the snowfall forecast for this event.

JP

(5:30PM - 1/5/21) A brief recap regarding the Fri, January 1st winter storm that affected portions of the state with snowfall and significant ice accumulation.

Overview...
A storm system is ejected out from the Southern Plains/Gulf Coast Thursday night (Dec. 31st), tracking northeastward through the Ohio Valley on Friday (Jan. 1st), and into the Eastern Great Lakes by Saturday (Jan. 2nd). A large shield of precipitation spread across the state, Thursday night through late Friday night. Precipitation ranged from snow/sleet and ice across Northern Illinois, to ice and rain across Central Illinois, to rain across Southern Illinois.

Summary...
Northern Illinois:
A mix of freezing rain, sleet and snow spread into Northern Illinois, mid to late Friday morning. A freezing rain, sleet and snow mix then occurred across Northern Illinois from late Friday morning through late Friday afternoon. As colder air filtered in, the mix transitioned to snow across much of Northern Illinois Friday evening. Snow then continued into Friday night, before ending.

Central Illinois:
Thursday night precipitation in Southern Illinois spread northward into Central Illinois. With colder air in place, precipitation was in the form of freezing rain. Freezing rain then occurred across Central Illinois from Thursday night through late Friday morning. As the storm system passed, precipitation turned to snow Friday afternoon and evening, eventually ending early Friday night.

Southern Illinois:
A mix of rain and freezing rain spread into Southern Illinois early Thursday night. This mix turned rain overnight, with periods of rain will then continuing through Friday evening, before ending.

Final snow/sleet totals upwards of 1-3" occurred across a good portion of Northern and Central Illinois. Widespread significant ice accumulation of 0.10-0.50"+ occurred across a large portion of Northern, Central and Southwest Illinois. Wind gusts of 20-35MPH, combined with the ice accumulations, lead to widespread tree damage and power outages for some of the affected areas. 
​
​Below are map representations of final forecasts an observed snowfall and ice totals across the state and adjacent areas. 

JP

(4:30PM - 1/5/21) A brief recap regarding the Tue-Wed, December 29-30th winter storm that affected portions of the state with significant snowfall and ice accumulation.

Overview...
A weak and loosely organized storm system ejected out from the Plains on Tuesday (Dec. 29th), and tracked northeastward into the Great Lakes by Wednesday (Dec. 30th). With cold air initially in place, snow was favored for a several hour period of time across Northern Illinois, before transitioning to mostly sleet and freezing rain. Across Central Illinois a period of snow/sleet/freezing rain occurred for a short time, before changing to rain.

Summary...
A large area of precipitation spread across the state, Tuesday afternoon through Wednesday afternoon. Precipitation, in the form of snow, first spread into Northwest and Western Illinois early Tuesday afternoon. Precipitation then quickly spread further across the remainder of Northern and Central Illinois the remainder of Tuesday afternoon, with much of it falling as snow across Northern Illinois and a wintry mix across Central Illinois. As warm air advection increased Tuesday evening, snow turned to a wintry mix (snow/sleet/freezing rain) across Northern Illinois, with the wintry mix having turned to all rain across Central Illinois. By Wednesday morning as warm air advection continued, a wintry mix (snow/sleet/freezing rain/rain) continued across Northern Illinois, with precipitation having ended by Wednesday afternoon.

An axis of snowfall totals of 6-12" occurred across the region, including across Northwest Illinois...With amounts gradually tapering with southward extent across Northern Illinois. An axis of ice accumulation of 0.10-0.25"+ occurred across a large portion of Western and Northern Illinois. This ice accumulation lead to some tree damage and power outages for some areas.

Below are map representations of final forecasts an observed snowfall and ice totals across the state and adjacent areas. 

JP

(11:45AM - 1/2/21) A storm system will move through the region today and Sunday, bringing periods of snow and minor snowfall accumulation to portions of the state.

​Summary...
A storm system is expected to eject out from the Southern Plains today, tracking northeastward through the Ohio Valley tonight, and into the Eastern Great Lakes on Sunday. Areas of snow are expected to develop and will spread across the state, later this afternoon through Sunday morning. Model guidance is in agreement regarding the track of this system, as well as location and amount of snow. No significant changes were needed with this update.

​Forecast...
Areas of snow are expected to develop and spread across the state, later this afternoon and evening through Sunday morning. Much of the state will be affected by snow, except for far Southern Illinois and far Northern/Northwest Illinois.
​
​​What's Expected...
A swath of snowfall totals of a dusting to 2" are expected across the heart of the state, with locally higher amounts possible.
​
​Below is the snowfall forecast for this event.

JP