With a warm front to our north across southern Wisconsin, a strong south-to-southwest wind gusting at times over 30 mph will likely usher in a “taste” of weather more common in mid- and late May.
This will be the third time this spring that Chicagoans have witnessed 70-degree-plus temperatures by this date — a fairly rare occurrence that has happened only 10 times in the past 147 years.
Early Thursday evening, a band of thunderstorms preceding the approaching warm front moved east across northern Illinois and the Chicago area with numerous reports of pea-sized hail here. The front was expected to move north into Wisconsin overnight, setting the stage for the May-like conditions Friday.
A cold front will move south out of Wisconsin on Friday night, bisecting the Chicago area and hovering approximately along the Interstate-80 corridor Saturday into Sunday. Showers and thunderstorms are likely during this period, with temperatures ranging from the 40s north to the 60s south.
