1st Day Of Spring Is Coming: How Warm Will It Feel In Illinois?

ILLINOIS — Take heart, ye who have had it with winter up to your chattering teeth and frozen-shut nose. Warmer days are coming — the spring equinox officially arrives at 4:37 a.m. on Saturday, March 20 — even if the Farmers’ Almanac’s extended spring forecast calls for weather that will feel more like winter in Illinois.

Winter has held much of the country in an icy grip as a polar vortex reached the country’s southern border in recent days. The weather has been brutal and hideous over much of the country, and not just among the folks who have nothing better to talk about than the weather.

The extreme cold in places where people normally live in shorts and T-shirts during the winter is the result of a split in the polar vortex, a large area of low pressure that spins around the poles in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres.

It’s the coldest air on the planet. When something happens to knock the stratospheric polar vortex — the layer of cold air 5 to 30 miles above the Earth’s surface — off balance, as happened this year, look out: Pieces of the bitterly cold polar vortex can split off and swirl southward.

The Farmers’ Almanac's extended spring forecast suggests you’ll be able to pack those memories away with the thermal long johns and fleece-lined boots and trade them for rain gear in most parts of the country.

In Illinois, weather will be "stormy, slow to warm," the Farmers' Almanac's forecast states. According to the forecast, there will be plenty of thunderstorms, and in some cases, a few storms might include "tornadic activity."