As light snow flurries taper off Saturday night, “bitterly cold” temperatures are expected to hit Chicago through Tuesday night, with wind chills as low as minus 30 degrees, the National Weather Service predicts.
Temperatures hovered around 26 degrees at 8 a.m. at O’Hare International Airport, the city’s collection site, with a low expected Saturday of minus 1 degree. Overnight, as much 5.3 inches of snow fell in the city. In the west suburbs, Roselle recorded 7 inches of snowfall and Naperville received 6.5 inches. Closer to the lake, Chicago saw as little as 1.7 inches of snow.
Light snow flurries are predicted to continue through Saturday morning, with a light chance of snow into the afternoon. More than an inch of “light, fluffy snow” could fall Saturday night into Sunday.
Following a hectic Friday with more than 1,000 cancelled flights, the city’s two airports had another batch of cancellations Saturday, including 178 at O’Hare as of 7: 30 a.m. At Midway International Airport, 16 flights were canceled, all of them on Southwest, Midway’s dominant carrier.
After several nights of wet snow this week, the area will face a cold wave, with frigid temperatures to arrive Saturday afternoon after light snow showers die down. Wind chills as low as minus 30 degrees will hit Chicago through Tuesday night, the weather service predicted.
“Winds will increase throughout the day [Saturday] and usher in much colder temperatures that will lock in place over the Chicago region,” said meteorologist Scott Baker.
The weather service said on social media that the warm start to winter will make the coming cold wave feel “much worse.” The first 43 days of winter in Chicago has been the third mildest season on record behind 1890 and 1878, according to the weather service.
The average temperature from Dec. 1 to Jan. 12 has been 37.1 degrees, roughly 7.9 degrees higher than normal.
At a Friday news conference inside the city’s emergency communications center, Mayor Brandon Johnson and other officials highlighted efforts to keep Chicagoans, particularly migrants and homeless people, warm.
The city had deployed 287 salt spreaders to clear snow and ice as city workers canvassed across the city to conduct well-being checks and connect homeless people to shelter over the next several days.
“I echo our city leadership today in saying that we are ready for the services and resources to keep residents and our new arrivals safe this winter,” Johnson said. “The full force of government is committed to the people of Chicago and new arrivals in this season.”
The heavy storm also disrupted schools Friday, with 32 Chicago Public Schools experiencing brief outages.