January 2020 will go down as the warmest January that Chicago has had in the past eight years, but one of the reasons for the mild weather may have you feeling a little down: The clouds.
Chicago has had only two sunny days (70% or more sunshine) all month long, and each of the past nine days has been completely cloudy. That's more than a week with barely any blue sky.
Why is this happening? One major part of the explanation is a lack of "forcing" to get the low cloud cover out of the area. Low clouds and fog are very common this time of year in the Midwest, but typically a front or a storm shoves the low clouds out. Well, that hasn't happened for more than a week, so we're still stuck under a very large blanket of clouds.
Here's the good news: A weak front will move through early this weekend, and we should see some clearing as soon as Saturday evening. Sunday will likely be the sunniest and warmest day we've had in a while with highs likely reaching the upper 40s to mid 50s.
