DeKALB – DeKalb is under a winter weather advisory until 7 a.m. Friday, according to the National Weather Service. DeKalb has been experiencing on and off snowstorms in the afternoon but is currently battling dry air.

“For precipitation, we really want real moist air down towards the ground. And so essentially, our precipitation is melting and then evaporating,” Kelvin Hawthorne, a sophomore meteorology major and member of NIU’s forecasting team, said.

“As of now, that’s why we haven’t got as much snow as we thought we were going to have, and there’s definitely still chances of snow as we go through the evening,” Hawthorne said.

DeKalb County should expect a cloudy Friday morning with northeast wind gusts averaging between 5 mph and 10 mph. DeKalb should expect to see snow coming from the west.

“We have some precipitation going on in the form of snow out in Western Illinois which is beginning to work in our area, and it seems that they have really gotten rid of some of that dry air out there which is allowing snow to fall,” Hawthorne said. “Here locally, I would expect some of that dry air to go away and snow to start to fall a little bit in the next couple of hours and then persist just through the early overnight hours.”

NIU commuters and students who are leaving to go home for spring break Thursday or Friday should expect the weather to be wet for their drive home.

“Things have really, really gone down in terms of road conditions. The pavement is quite a bit warmer than the grass,” Hawthorne said. “Pavements, I think, may start to accumulate a little bit after the temperatures drop just after sunset, in which case, you might see some salt trucks out and things might get a little bit slushy.”

Temperatures are anticipated to increase over the next 24 hours.

“In general, I expect the temperatures to rebound back above freezing tomorrow (Friday) so the pavement will be more wet than anything but there might be a few slick spots here and there on roads that aren’t properly treated,” Hawthorne said.

Another bout of snow is expected to hit DeKalb on Saturday.

“The National Weather Service is currently expecting between 1 and 3 inches (of snow) out of that system at this time,” Hawthorne said.