November to close with Rockford area’s coldest temperatures since February
Canadian air’s residence here to be temporary, milder air to return after brief hiatus
ROCKFORD, Ill. (WIFR) - As Thanksgiving weekends go, you sure couldn’t ask for one much better than the one recently concluded. With every day from Thanksgiving through Sunday registering high temperatures of 45° or higher, we continue a streak of above normal temperatures that has now reached twelve days in succession! What’s more, 23 out of the month’s first 29 days, or about 79%, have seen temperatures at or above normal here. Currently, November, 2020 projects to close as the area’s fourth warmest since 1906!
That said, the month will actually end on quite a cold note. All signs continue to point to the coldest temperatures our area’s seen in nine months arriving over the coming 24 hours. In fact, the cooling trend is already underway, as northerly winds have locked in following Sunday’s 48° high, sending temperatures plummeting into the 30s, and eventually 20s overnight. By Monday afternoon, temperatures will struggle to reach much above freezing, if at all, with still-gusty winds keeping wind chills in the 20s all day long.
While cloudiness may linger at the day’s onset, sun will be out and shining brightly by late morning, and sunshine’s to be prominently featured for most of the week.
Winds should begin to die down some Monday night, though they’ll be enough of a factor to send wind chills into the teens overnight, perhaps even the single digits in some of the coldest outlying locales.
Sunshine will be dominant again Tuesday as we welcome December, though as winds remain out of the northwest, temperatures will again struggle, though not to the extent they will Monday. More seasonable readings in the upper 30s are a good bet Tuesday underneath the day’s unlimited sun.
The driving reason for the sharply cooler early week regime is a realigning of the jet stream. At long last, it’s buckled, allowing cold air to spill southward out of Canada. It’s a pattern we should more commonly see this time of year, though we’ve gotten little more than glimpses of it thus far.
For those who may not be all that keen on the cold, take comfort in the fact that arctic air’s residence here is to be a brief one! By midweek, cold air will begin its retreat northeastward, as Pacific air returns to our area, allowing for noticeably milder temperatures to return.
And, the milder air appears to have some staying power! All indications suggest the upper levels winds to align in such a way that cold air returns to Canada, and remains bottled up there for the foreseeable future. Beyond Tuesday, above normal temperatures are likely to reside here through at least December 10.
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