Last Update: 11/24/2025 10:20 PM CST
A cool, muggy evening for the Chicago area tonight under overcast skies with temperatures hovering around the mid to upper 40's amid 5-10 mph SSE winds. A large abundance of moisture has pooled together throughout northern IL, WI, and IA with southeasterly surface winds advecting higher dewpoints up against a SW-NE oriented stationary front in southeast MN and northern WI. This, along with marginal warm sector ascent thanks to a low pressure system to our far WNW has allowed for a few light rain showers/drizzle to fester throughout the area. Dewpoints in the mid 40's, and lack of vertical mixing due to the nocturnal boundary layer have allowed for diminished visibilities, particularly to the west of the city (as low as 3 miles near the I-39 corridor).
Muggy conditions will continue throughout the night with low level stratus lingering, patchy fog to the west, and lows in the mid 40's with a light 5-10 mph SSE wind. A few mid level ripple waves will allow for another period of light rain/drizzle primarily for the south and west suburbs after 1 am, before fizzling out in the early-mid morning as the mid level trough to our SSW pushes eastward.
Tomorrow, another upper trough will dig as it surges ESE out of the northern plains, leading to a strengthening of the low currently set up in western SD. Locally, our area will remain calm and cloudy after morning fog/rain clears, with highs in the low 50's and a 5-10 mph southwesterly wind.
The northern plains low will push eastward into WI as it deepens tomorrow evening, with its attendant north-south oriented cold front sweeping through the western fringes of the metro by around 10 pm. Rain showers will fester ahead of the front (around 9 pm west of the metro) before quickly dissipating after it passes (12-1 am Wednesday morning east of the metro). Not an accumulating event by any means, but there is certainly a strong punch of cold air with the low level jet behind the front, bringing 15-25 mph WSW winds gusting up to 35 mph throughout the night, and sending overnight lows plummeting into the low to mid 30's tomorrow night into Wednesday morning. May see a few flurries overnight into the mid-morning hours, primarily northwest of the city so long as the winds don't dry out the boundary layer too quickly as the wrap-around region of the low pressure system meanders east throughout WI and IL.
Westerly winds will continue to ramp up to 25-30 mph Wednesday morning, with gusts possibly as high as 45 mph while CAA offsets diurnal heating leading to highs only in the mid to upper 30's.
Windy conditions will persist Wednesday night into Thanksgiving day as the LLJ gradually pushes off to the east, with a westerly 15-25 mph sustained breeze and gusts up to 35 mph, along with lows in the low to mid 20's, wind chills may feel as low as the single digits early Thanksgiving morning!