The weekend is almost here and Central Illinois may see some of the coldest nighttime temperatures since last winter. IPM News meteorologist Ed Kieser joined Morning Edition host Alex Barton to give a rundown of what to expect in the coming days.
ALEX BARTON: Good morning, Ed. What can we expect Saturday?
ED KIESER: We are expecting chilly weather compared to what we’ve had. It’s actually going to be a little cooler than average, which is a change from what we’ve experienced most of this fall. Our average high temperature this weekend is 51 and the low 33, and for Saturday, we’re expecting to start out the day with the coolest reading of the season so far at 26 and only getting up into the middle 40s during the course of the afternoon, but we will have lots of sunshine on Saturday.
BARTON: What can we expect Sunday?
KIESER: Well, more of the same. It looks like we’re going to go back down into the mid-20’s Saturday night into Sunday morning and then maybe just shy of 50 degrees on Sunday. So Sunday afternoon, a little bit warmer than Saturday, but the bottom line is throughout the weekend, brilliant sunshine.
BARTON: And have we had a mild fall so far?
KIESER: We have indeed. I was looking back at the statistics from the Illinois State Water survey and for the month of October we averaged 10.2 degrees above average, for the month for the first 11 days or so of November, 12.7 degrees above average, but that’s going to change as we get into this weekend and the early part of next week.
BARTON: What can we expect as we look ahead into the work week?
KIESER: Well, the start of the work week is going to be on the cool side, but we’re going to have moderating temperatures throughout the week. So, for example, on Monday, we’re going to get up to near 50 degrees. We’ll be in the mid to upper 50’s by midweek, and we could see some low 60’s again toward the end of the week. Overnight low temperatures will still be in the 20’s, so we’re now going to be starting a period here where we’re going below freezing every night, so the growing season absolutely will be over.
Lots of sunshine for the beginning of the week. We’re going to have several days in a row of dry weather and sunny conditions. It looks like there could be a couple of showers coming in maybe on Thursday, but it doesn’t look like a lot of rain at this point.
BARTON: So can you tell me about some of the lake effect snow in Chicago?
KIESER: Well, we are having the first the lake effect conditions, starting Thursday into Friday. And what lake effect is, is when cold air comes down over the relatively warmer waters of the Great Lakes, Lake Michigan. In particular for the Chicago area, the lake temperature is still in the low 50’s, so the air just above the lake surface is in the low 50’s, but up a mile into the atmosphere, the temperatures are turning much colder, and when you get that big change in temperature over that mile from being really warm near the ground to much colder aloft.
Air starts to rise in the process we call convection and clouds form, and the winds are blowing north to south, bringing those clouds inland really into the northwest part of Indiana. So around Lake County, Indiana is where one to three inches of snow is expected in some lake effect snow bands, going into Friday morning. And that’s the first of the season, so much of Chicago will not get much snow from this, but there will be some localized snow that does fall, and it’s the first of the season, and we are going into lake effect snow season. Places to the southeast of the Great Lakes tend to get more lake effect snow during the course of the winter because the prevailing northwest to southeast cold winds take the snow in that direction. So often times it’s around Michigan City, Indiana over to South Bend that gets the heaviest snow, but on occasion it does come into Chicago.