10/29 IL Migration Report

Take special note of the  low pressure system over Kansas right now

Evening friends,

Tonight's continental wind map. The arrow points to the
center of the Low Pressure system to our west. It will be
interesting to watch how it moves from a winds
perspective. Click to watch live.

So as predicted, we find ourselves smack dab in the center of a large area of southerly winds. And we're not talking southerly-ish winds from some weak high pressure that some migrants may still pass through. No, we're right in between a powerful high pressure system to the east (remember winds revolve clockwise around high pressure) and a large low pressure system to the west (remember winds revolve counterclockwise around low pressure). We can even see the center of the low pressure system over Kansas on the Wind Map. So we're getting a double-whammy again--southerly winds caused by high pressure, and southerly winds caused by low pressure. Needless to say, not much if anything is migrating tonight. So let's look forward, shall we?

48-hour forecast. Click to enlarge.
The yellow circle labels the low
pressure system currently over Kansas.
Notice how much it moved. The
blue arrows point out the
widespread precipitation.

Interestingly, the low pressure to our west I mentioned will be moving north and then east along the eastern edge of the Great Plains for the next couple of days. It's the system carrying the warm from the south that will move northward into Illinois tomorrow, bringing stronger southerly winds, lots precipitation, and continuing the migratory shutdown. In 48-hours, the center of this low pressure system will be sitting right over the western tip of Lake Superior, and the above mentioned warm front will be moving through Wisconsin. Widespread precipitation and super-powerful southerly winds will be the star of the show until another front from the low pressure system, this one cold, sweeps the precipitation away from northwest of us. Following it will be weak, northwesterly winds. So we'll see what happens then on Thursday night, but it will probably be an improvement from

This image is really useful: we can see the powerful southerly
winds forecast for IL on Thurs, depicted in yellow and
red, and the weaker NW winds entering the a cold front.

tonight and tomorrow night.

Good stuff all. Have a great night.