REGIONS 102 COUNTIES · 9 REGIONAL SITES · NWS OFFICIAL Regions Severe Climate About Almanac Garden
ILL 55
FORECAST ILLINOIS
Weather & Climate · The Prairie State

Regions of Illinois

Illinois is too big for one forecast. The state splits into 9 regions, each with its own site — the same maps, the same live radar and the same climate record, scoped to the counties that actually share a sky. Every city in a region gets its own page underneath it.

The 9 Regions

Guide · Pick a region
Rockford
Forest City · I-39/90 · The Rock River
OPEN →
This is the corner of Illinois the lake never reaches. Nothing moderates it, so Canadian air comes down the Rock River valley unblunted and Rockford runs colder than Chicago on most January mornings — and the same open ground gives a supercell crossing the Mississippi a clean, unobstructed run at the city.
9
Counties
69
City Pages
I-90
Main Street
Northern Illinois
rockford.forecastillinois.com
Quad Cities
The Mississippi · I-74/80 · Rock Island
OPEN →
The Mississippi runs the year here. Snowmelt out of Minnesota and Wisconsin arrives weeks after it falls and puts the river over its banks at Rock Island, and the flat black-soil ground between the rivers is as good a place as Illinois has for a storm to organize on a spring afternoon.
9
Counties
70
City Pages
I-80
Main Street
Quad Cities & Northwest
quadcities.forecastillinois.com
Peoria
River City · I-74 · The Illinois
OPEN →
The Illinois River cuts a 200-foot valley across otherwise flat ground, and it shows up in the forecast — fog that fills the bluffs on a calm autumn night, and a snow line that can sit on the valley wall. On 17 November 2013 an EF-4 crossed the river ahead of a November squall line and took apart a mile-wide swath of Washington in four minutes.
10
Counties
69
City Pages
I-74
Main Street
Illinois River Valley
peoria.forecastillinois.com
East Central Illinois
The Grand Prairie · I-57/74 · Twin Cities
OPEN →
This is the flattest, most open ground in the state — the Grand Prairie, drained by tile and farmed fencerow to fencerow — and it hides nothing. A storm that forms over Iowa arrives here with its whole structure visible from twenty miles out, and the same flatness lets an April wind run at 40 mph for a day and a half without a hill to slow it.
14
Counties
70
City Pages
I-57
Main Street
East Central Illinois
champaign.forecastillinois.com
Springfield
Land of Lincoln · I-55/72 · The Capital
OPEN →
Springfield sits in the middle of the state and gets the middle of everything — Gulf moisture that makes it this far north, Canadian air that makes it this far south, and the seam between them parked overhead for days. The ice storms are what people remember here, and most winters the forecast comes down to two degrees.
12
Counties
69
City Pages
I-55
Main Street
The Capital Region
springfield.forecastillinois.com
Quincy
Gem City · I-172 · The Mississippi
OPEN →
Two big rivers box this corner in, and Calhoun County between them is a peninsula that floods from both sides. In the summer of 1993 the Bayview Bridge at Quincy was the only Mississippi crossing open for two hundred miles, and the river did not fall below flood stage for months.
7
Counties
68
City Pages
I-172
Main Street
West Central Illinois
quincy.forecastillinois.com
Metro East
The American Bottom · I-55/64/70 · The Arch
OPEN →
The American Bottom is a floodplain with a metro built on it, held off the Mississippi by levees, and the confluence with the Missouri is fifteen miles upstream. In 1993 the river stood 49.6 feet at St. Louis and stayed up for two months. It is also the farthest north Gulf moisture reaches easily, which is why the severe season opens here first.
8
Counties
70
City Pages
I-64
Main Street
Metro East
metroeast.forecastillinois.com
Effingham
The Crossroads · I-57/70 · The Wabash
OPEN →
Effingham is where I-57 crosses I-70, which makes it the place the rain–snow line gets argued over every winter — the storm that gives Chicago a foot often gives this crossroads a quarter inch of ice instead. East of here the Wabash bottoms flood on Indiana's rain as readily as on Illinois's.
13
Counties
69
City Pages
I-70
Main Street
Wabash Valley & Southeast
effingham.forecastillinois.com
Carbondale
Little Egypt · I-24/57 · The Shawnee
OPEN →
Illinois ends in a wedge between the Ohio and the Mississippi, and it is the warmest, wettest and most tornado-prone ground in the state. The Tri-State Tornado crossed here on 18 March 1925 at nearly 60 mph and killed 541 people in Illinois alone — still the deadliest tornado in American history. Cairo sits at the confluence behind a sixty-foot wall.
14
Counties
69
City Pages
I-57
Main Street
Southern Illinois
carbondale.forecastillinois.com

Every County

Services · 102 counties

Which region a county belongs to, and where its forecast lives.

Rockford
9 counties
Winnebago · Boone · Stephenson · Jo Daviess · Carroll · Ogle · DeKalb · Lee · Whiteside
Quad Cities
9 counties
Rock Island · Henry · Mercer · Bureau · Putnam · Knox · Warren · Henderson · Stark
Peoria
10 counties
Peoria · Tazewell · Woodford · Fulton · Marshall · Mason · LaSalle · Grundy · Kendall · Livingston
East Central
14 counties
Champaign · McLean · Vermilion · Ford · Iroquois · Kankakee · Piatt · De Witt · Douglas · Edgar · Coles · Cumberland · Clark · Moultrie
Springfield
12 counties
Sangamon · Menard · Logan · Macon · Christian · Morgan · Cass · Scott · Montgomery · Shelby · Macoupin · Greene
Quincy
7 counties
Adams · Hancock · McDonough · Schuyler · Brown · Pike · Calhoun
Metro East
8 counties
Madison · St. Clair · Monroe · Clinton · Bond · Randolph · Jersey · Washington
Effingham
13 counties
Effingham · Fayette · Marion · Clay · Richland · Jasper · Crawford · Lawrence · Wabash · Edwards · Wayne · Jefferson · White
Carbondale
14 counties
Jackson · Williamson · Franklin · Perry · Union · Johnson · Pulaski · Alexander · Massac · Pope · Hardin · Saline · Gallatin · Hamilton