Temperature Inversions

What are temperature inversions? The air as you leave the surface of the earth is usually cooler aloft. With a temperature inversion, the air temp actually increases somewhere above the surface. When we get a deck of low level grey status clouds across our area in the winter time, it's sometimes is difficult to "mix-out" the clouds since we cannot break the temperture inversion with such a low sun angle. In the month of March or April when the sun angle is much higher and stronger, it becomes a little easier to "mix-out" or break the inversion. The end result is usually sunshine, but we sure couldn't do that this weekend. Below is a graphic explaining this...compliments of the National Weather Service in Chicago. Notice the low level clouds at/near the surface, and this temperature inversion aloft acting as a "lid" and preventing any mixing from occurring. Not only did we not get the sunshine on Saturday, mostly cloudy skies held our temps to only low/mid 30s. Look for a repeat of this on Sunday.