A warm up is on the way!
Saturday’s forecast calls from mostly sunny, windy and warmer. A high of 70 is prediected.
For Easter Sunday we will see partly cloudy skies and warm inland, but with cooler lake breezes on and near the Lake Michigan shoreline. High 74 inland–but upper 50s to mid 60s on the immediate shoreline.
A vigorous “SSW” flow is behind the temp surge. But I’m taking great care to advise that lake winds, those are winds which take on an easterly direction and therefore flow ashore off still chilly lake waters, are, and have been, predicted to arrive on the scene Sunday and again toward Wednesday. These will take a big bite out of the warmth in shoreline and nearshore areas even as areas well inland back in spring warmth. So the warmth won’t be universal at all times in the coming five days. But what is to take place for much of the area is one of the warmer spells of weather overall since November.
Further into the future, the potential exists for the area’s first 0.50″ or more precip event since late January. The bulk of that could come as showers and t-storms Wednesday night into Thursday, though some scattered showers may occur in the days leading up to those rains.
The moisture’s needed. We had only half the normal precip in March and the prolific snows of February contained limited moisture–so February’s water equivalent precip tally was a good deal below normal too.
The last Drought Monitor, the definitive measure of drought in the county, place sections of the Chicago area in the first stage of drought, indicating abnormal dryness. My NWS Chicago colleagues caution, and with good reason, that outdoor burning shouldn’t take place given the dry conditions, low relative humidities and strong winds expected to accompany warming Saturday.
For the latest weather updates, go to wgnv.com/weather.