Lows ran 19-26 this morning before rising to 22-30 late.

We have clouded up & we are fair game for showers with increasing coverage south to north after 12 p.m.

They are coming in late enough that there looks to be no or just little sleet at the onset.

Winds will increase from the southeast to south-southeast & then south today-tonight with gusts reached 30-40 mph by tonight as temperatures rise.

With that embedded t'storms will also develop & rainfall should be widespread.

A couple of lines of showers & t'storms should pass early Sunday morning followed by clearing skies in the dry slot before low clouds pivot in from the northwest with falling temperatures Sunday afternoon.

0.50-1" of rainfall is likely.

Strong winds will occur Sunday with gusts 40-50 mph (isolated +50 mph) from the southwest to west-southwest, then west late.  Winds will be sustained at 25-33 mph.

Wind Advisory is up area-wide.

Main area of severe weather risk is southwest of our area tonight, but I do think the risk of an isolated severe storm or two is there across central & eastern Illinois & right to our viewing area.

The MARGINAL RISK will likely be expanded northeastward given surface low dropping 4 mb in a few hours, +70 mph low-level jet, +110 mph upper jet streak & +300 m2s-2 of 3km helicity.

ML CAPE will be paltry at 200 J/kg, but the strong dynamic & kinamatics at play could result in the transfer of the wind momentum down to the surface with a few storms & higher helicity could result in a rotating storm or node/dog leg in one of the lines.

Timing of any isolated severe storm or two would be 2 a.m. to 6 a.m.

In analog, this looks very similar to what occurred on the night of March 24-25, 1996.

We saw a good amount of severe weather wind wind, hail & tornadoes in Arkansas, Missouri & southwestern Illinois.

In our area & southward, CAPE was paltry, but similar low-level jet & upper jet to helicity values existed.

You can see that the band of rainfall with some thunder & lightning didn't look like much, but it is a few embedded higher-topped showers & storms that were able to tap into that wind energy & bring it down to the surface as the surface low deepened rapidly over Iowa (like what will occur tonight).

Temperatures rose during the night to the 50s to 60 here. 

In my weather record from back were I grew up southwest of Bloomington, I only hit 61 overnight & there were still some patches of snow on the ground from the historic snowstorm of March 19-20!  The day before I remember being cold & gray with 40s & a southeast wind blowing.

However, my grandfather's tractor & farm implement shed was completely destroyed with metal blown as much as 0.25 mile away.  I remember going out there the next morning to see it with west winds howling at 40-50 mph with the sun out.  Another similar shed was destroyed on the Don Meurer farm southwest of that area north of Plainville.  I just remember there being no risk of severe weather drawn in for our area at the time & it was all southwestern Illinois to Arkansas.

Other wind damage sporadically occurred from southwest, southern & southeast Indiana to as far north as Clinton & Montgomery counties.

You can see that there were a few warning issued (see in the 12:35 a.m. image below), but the showers/storms did not look impressive.  Wind damage also occurred were warnings were not issued, like where we had the damage back home as a kid.

Again, I always use A LOT of analog analysis to forecast rather than just looking at model numbers.  This is extremely important to come up with a forecast.

Sunday night to early Monday morning will feature less windy conditions, but gusts of 20-30 mph are still likely as the direction turns to the west-northwest.

Temperatures Sunday should fall from 50s to 40s during the day.

Monday looks mostly sunny with highs 51-56 after lows of 31-35 in the morning with wind chills in the 20s.

The rest of next week look dry & much warmer by the end of the week.

60s to 70s are possible Friday-Saturday.

Showers/storms are possible either Saturday or Sunday of next weekend with risk of a few isolated severe storms as strong cold front races through the viewing area.