I’ve gotten word of a few reports of fireballs/meteors this evening. They have occurred at two different times, around 8:30pm and 10:30pm. I do not have any word on whether anything made it to the ground. I checked with the National Weather Service offices in Milwaukee and the Quad Cities and neither have had any reports. After checking the list of times for meteor showers on stardate.org it doesn’t appear we’re in any window.

If you have anything to report, please do so via weather@wrex.com or by describing what you saw by clicking on the comment link below.

Posted under space

One of these nine people will be going to West Palm Beach on us! For almost two weeks we’ve been giving you questions to answer online. Did you enter? Better yet, did you get all of the answers correct? Here’s a recap of our Rockford/Florida trivia. And, it’s too late to enter. Be watching for our next giveaway. I’ll work on something equally good!

What is the three-letter abbreviation for the Chicago Rockford Int’l Airport?

What airline currently has the most destinations from the Chicago Rockford Int’l Airport?

True or False: West Palm Beach is located on the west coast of Florida.

What occupied the site of the Chicago/Rockford Int’l Airport in the early 20th Century?

True or False: Which city is bigger in population: The City of Palm Beach or the City of West Palm Beach?

What is the name of the lake that separates Palm Beach with West Palm Beach?

What is Florida’s state motto?

How much does it cost to park at the Chicago/Rockford Int’l Airport for one day?

If you win this contest, you will be jet-setting to what Florida city?

Posted under event

We are watching another pocket of cold air building up into Southern Canada that will start to dip south into our area.  What we can expect from the cold front is North winds that will pull colder air across our region stating Friday night and Saturday.  The cold air remains in our forecast through the weekend and into Monday morning.  I hate to say this but our high temperatures over the weekend are expected to be about 10-20 degrees cooler than average for the beginning of October. 

The timeframe that we will watch closely is Saturday night into Sunday morning.  Temperatures are expected to drop into the lower and mid 30s resulting in areas of frost. With these cold temperatures during the overnight hours on both Saturday and Sunday, you should take the necessary precautions to protect sensitive vegetation.   

Posted under cold blast, weather

Today’s high temperatures surged into the middle and high 70s across Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin. Check out the temperature trend we’ve been on, with highs last Saturday in the 50s and today about 20° warmer! While I believe we’ve still got some warmth like this to come in the next week or two, it’s not going to happen anytime during the next seven days.

As FutureTrack indicates, a cold front will move through the area around 1am Thursday morning. Because there is very little moisture with the front, it will come through our area dry. Just a few clouds expected. Winds will kick up with the passage of the front and may gust above 30mph for a time on Thursday.

Our dramatic cool-down will come in stages though. We’ll see highs in the 50s over the weekend with lows in the 30s.

Posted under cold blast, weather

Today’s temperatures are very enjoyable; unfortunately, all goods things must end. A strong cold front will pass by late this evening, which starts the trend of dropping temperatures over the next couple of days. Along with the cold front is a high-pressure system that also comes from Canada by tomorrow morning. This too will bring a reinforcing surge of cool air to our area for Thursday afternoon, however it also give us a nice amount of sunshine. With the area of high pressure to our West, winds out of the Northwest will continue to bring in cooler air. Even though we’ll have plenty of sunshine, it’s the overnight hours where our temperatures take the biggest hit, thanks to the clear skies and light winds.  This combination makes it harder for our temperatures to rebound back to average during the day.

Posted under weather

Today and tomorrow’s middle 70° weather will come at a premium with each passing week this fall. I was out shopping with my mom along East State Street and we both remarked at how beautiful the weather was. With today’s exceptional conditions, I decided to take a look at the conditions for the holidays since Halloween begins in about a month…Thanksgiving is a month after that…Christmas is a month after that. Check out how quickly those temperatures drop! That’s what we get for living this far north, right?

Posted under cold blast

I bet you have heard me say, “The clouds act like a blanket” to keep our temperatures from falling colder than what they are. It is true that the effects of having cloud cover at night helps, but it works in a much different more scientific way.
The Earth is always radiating infrared energy away into the atmosphere. Molecules of gas in the air, such as water vapor absorb some of the energy. They then radiate that energy in all different directions, including back to Earth. All this energy being absorbed and re-released helps the atmosphere lose more heat on a clear night.
When there are clouds around, the tiny cloud droplets absorb more energy and keep it. As the energy is absorbed, it heats the droplets, causing it to radiate energy back to Earth keeping it warmer at the surface.

Posted under weather

According to NBC News, Los Angeles has broken their all-time hottest temperature of 113°.

Posted under weather

Lake Geneva, Wisconsin woke up to temperatures around 33° early Monday morning. A few clouds and higher dewpoints kept things in check everywhere else with morning temperatures in the 40s.

We’ll see a brief ridge of high pressure the next few days which has the potential of getting us into the middle 70s on Wednesday! The warmth won’t last long though as a huge dump of cold air is anticipated for the weekend. It won’t come with one, huge bang of a cold front (with wind). Instead, it’ll just gradually get really cold. The air will flow straight from the Northern reaches of Canada. Saturday’s high temperature may not get out of the middle 50s which will set us up for a potentially growing-season-ending frost/freeze Saturday night. -ES

Posted under cold blast

Most of the residents in the town of Portage fled their homes after a 100-year-old levee started to fail. Our sister station WKOW in Madison reports “the levee is part of the Caledonia-Lewiston Levee System — several dikes built mainly out of sand during the 1890s by homeowners living near the river, according to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources.”
On Sunday, the south side of the Caledonia Levee, south of Highway 33 was starting to fail. Water was leaking out, although the levee had not completely broken. The Red Cross has set up a shelter and will be open as long as it is needed. The Wisconsin River is swollen from the massive thunderstorms last week that dropped several inches of rain. The National Weather Service expects the river to crest sometime today. The river is about 4 feet over flood stage. If or once the levee completely fails, it is still unknown how far south the floodwaters will travel. Over 100 homes could be affected by the floods along Blackhawk Road. The floodwaters could close sections of Highway 33 and Interstate 39.

Posted under event, flooding