A winter weather advisory has been issued for South Central Illinois from nine New Years Evening through noon New Years Day.
The National Weather Service says rain or freezing rain will begin late this evening and should become all rain after four am. Low temperature will drop to 30 degrees. It will be windy as well which could cause issues if freezing rain coats power lines. Winds are forecast to be out of the northeast from seven to 16 miles per hour with gusts as high as 24 miles per hour.
Ice accumulation of less than a tenth of an inch is possible.
Meanwhile, the New Years Day forecast calls for rain before four pm with temperatures warming to near 49 degrees.
The weather service says the chance of precipitation on New Year’s Eve and New Years Day is 100-percent.
The potential freezing rain is the northern edge of a powerful storm system that could dump up to 18 inches of snow across parts of Southwest Texas and Oklahoma before moving northwest into Arkansas. As the storm moves eastward, there will be a threat of tornadoes across Louisiana and southern Mississippi on New Year’s Eve as colder temperatures are met with moisture and warmer air.
The weather service believes the storm system produced a brief tornado in Corsicana, Texas on Wednesday.
