Another strong bout of weather was expected to hit the Chicago area Friday night, meteorologists said.
The storm brought heavy snow to the area Friday morning. Some areas recorded upward of 2 inches of snowfall per hour, said Jake Petr, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Romeoville. That precipitation transitioned to rain in most areas as temperatures warmed.
Weather should remain relatively calm through Friday night, Petr said. He urged residents to use the lull to regroup, shoveling if needed, as late evening was expected to bring a resurgence of nasty weather.
“We’re not expecting the accumulating snow to start back up until late this evening, say after 9, 10 p.m., and then through the overnight hours,” Petr said. “With that, we’ll have some pretty strong winds, potentially as high as 40 to 50 miles per hour. We did see a little bit of that briefly this morning.”
Northwest suburbs will see the worst effects of the storm, AccuWeather meteorologist Tom Kines said, as they continued to experience snowfall when Chicago’s precipitation turned to rain.
Some outlets have referred to the incoming storm as a bomb cyclone, a storm where the pressure drops and the storm intensifies very rapidly, but meteorologists say it is too early to say for certain.
To classify the storm as a bomb cyclone, Petr said, the barometric pressure has to drop by 1 millibar per hour for at least 24 hours. These storms tend to occur a couple of times a year in the United States, Kines said.
He said Friday’s weather “certainly could” intensify into a bomb cyclone, as the conditions are there. Due to the criteria required to classify it as such, though, it’s not possible to know for sure until Saturday.
Regardless of classification, travelers are encouraged to stay off the roads and remain indoors, especially later Friday night. After 8 p.m. or so, roads were expected to see significant snow blowing or drifting and slippery road conditions, with winds up to 50 mph.
“Temperatures tomorrow are going to be in the teens in the afternoon. It’s gonna feel like it’s zero or below out there. So you’ve got to protect yourself from hypothermia and frostbite. Keep your body covered up and your hands and face and head and all that stuff. It’s not the best of weather to be outside in, or travel for that matter,” Kines said.
Although snowfall should let up a bit after Saturday, cold, arctic air will quickly follow. Petr said wind chills on Sunday and Monday nights are predicted to drop below negative 20 degrees. Kines urged caution when going outside in temperatures like these.
“The cold air that follows the storm means business. That’s arctic cold,” Fines said.
