Weather in majority of the nation will be very active over the next two days as two strong fairly close surface lows centered over the Northeast and Midwest progress on Thursday. The system centered over the Midwest will bring severe thunderstorms and ingredients for tornadoes to the Southeast Thursday and destructive winds and rain to the East Coast by Friday. Meanwhile, this same system will coat the upper Midwest with snow accumulating up to 8” by Friday afternoon. Unfortunately, the Northeast has the fate of having to suffer through not one, but two strong low-pressure systems Thursday into late Friday that will bring them rain to potentially heavy snow. At the same time with the chaotic weather off to the north and east, majority of the South and Southwest will be experiencing dry and warmer weather with some areas expected to break record highs Thursday. Lucky them!
The following graphic is a valid forecast for Thursday afternoon that displays all the various weather that will be associated with these two systems.
Thursday in Champaign-Urbana will be warm and 11 degrees above average for this time of year with a daytime high of 51 °F and a low of 34°F. Expect scattered showers throughout the afternoon and into the evening hours with mostly cloudy skies throughout the day. Winds will be from the E at 6-17mph. As a low pressure system tracks just south of Illinois we will see temperatures begin to drop overnight on Friday. The daytime high will only get to 39°F on Friday and begin dropping overnight giving us a low of 26°F by midnight. Rain/snow showers are likely in the morning hours on Friday, but most of the snow that reaches the ground will melt. In addition to the already colder temperatures expect stronger winds from the WNW at 16-22mph that will makes temperatures feel more like the teens and 20s. Sky conditions will be mostly cloudy to overcast throughout the day, but clouds will begin clearing at night.
My forecast for Thursday was very close with the high just 1 degree colder than what I had said and the low just 2 degrees colder. As I had predicted there were some scattered showers throughout the day and winds were from the E at 10.7 mph and just slightly slower than the average wind speed I predicted. On Friday my high was 3 degrees colder than the actual high, but my low was correct at 26°F. There was some trace precipitation from the light snow showers in the morning as most of the snow did melt as soon as it touched the ground. Winds were from the WNW, but stronger than I had predicted with an average speed of 22.8 mph.
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