Farmer’s Almanac Doubles Down on Illinois Blizzard in 2 Weeks

A few months ago, Farmer's Almanac predicted a dire winter event near the end of January for Illinois. Now that we're much closer to that date, what do they have to say now? It appears they've double-down on a big snow in the Land of Lincoln within the next couple of weeks.

When I first shared what Farmer's Almanac had to say about winter in Illinois a few months ago, I promised then to circle back and this is that. If you missed that, here's the short version of what Farmer's Almanac had to say about late January in Illinois in a nutshell:

The circled that last 10 days of January saying they were watching "the time frames from January 20 to 23 and 24 to 27, which could mean copious amounts of snow, rain, sleet, and ice".

What is Farmer's Almanac saying about Illinois winter now?

The new update from Farmer's Almanac doubles down and gets specific. Here's what they said about January 24 through January 27, 2025:

"Frigidly cold air plunges south. Snow showers & squalls leeward side of the Great Lakes."

Is there any indication that a big snow event will happen in Illinois in late January?

While Illinois is experiencing a very brief warm-up which will melt some snow, the Climate Prediction Center does show another likely big drop in temperatures on or around January 24.

I just ran a computer model at Pivotal Weather which shows the GFS does reveal expected snowfall for the northern half of Illinois at least, but the model only goes through January 27 at this point.

Here's the takeaway from all this. Farmer's Almanac uses phases of the moon and historical weather patterns to issue their predictions. There is some slight agreement that Illinois could see some kind of snow event in the next few weeks, but we'll just have to wait and see if reality matches the dire prediction about late January in Illinois a few months ago.