A cold snap that’s been gripping Chicago for most of the week was expected to linger through the weekend, but temperatures as high as the 40s were expected by Wednesday.
The temperature reached 10 degrees at O’Hare Friday morning but windy conditions made for wind chills around minus 10 degrees, Kevin Doom, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said.
Similar conditions were expected for Saturday, with a high around 14 degrees and low around minus 4. Wind chills are expected to be around minus 10 degrees in the city and minus 20 degrees in the far west and northwest suburbs near Rockford.
The stretch of below zero wind chills was expected to carry into Sunday, but they were expected to be around zero by Sunday afternoon.
“What we saw earlier in the week is the coldest we’re gonna see in the near future,” Doom said. “As we push on into next week, we’ll actually warm up pretty steadily through the week.”
Temperatures were expected to reach the 40s by the middle of next week, according to the weather service.
Doom said the pool of cold air that sunk into the Midwest this week causing wind chills to plummet between minus 30 and minus 35 degrees was “still hanging around the region.”
During the week, high temperatures didn’t go above 5 degrees for the first time in nearly 30 years.
About an inch to one-and-a-half inches of snow fell throughout the city overnight with snowfall totals reaching closer to two inches in the west and southwest suburbs, Doom said.
O’Hare reported 1.5 inches of snow early Friday morning and unofficial reports of 1.6 inches were recorded at Midway, Doom said.
Light snow flurries were expected to continue Friday afternoon into the evening, Doom said. The next chance for precipitation is expected to be Monday, though it was unclear whether that’d be in the form of rain, snow or freezing rain.
