Good morning to all! One thing that I think is important to convey is that we here in the ABC7 Weather Center do not issue the Watches, Warnings and Advisories which you may see crawled across your TV screen or on a weather map during our presentations. That is information which is posted by the National Weather Service in Romeoville. (The Storm Prediction Center gets involved with severe weather situations too...I can explain that more in the future)
I state this simply because a very kind gentleman called me this morning asking me to tell people that there is a blizzard warning in his town. Of course, I understood his point and explained to him that I can certainly STRESS the intensity of the wind, the snow and the cold in his area, but OFFICIALLY we do not issue those things, but we do report them. A WINTER STORM WARNING IS IN EFFECT FOR COOK COUNTY (MAINLY THE SOUTHERN PART OF THE COUNTY) until 4pm. A WINTER STORM WARNING IS IN EFFECT UNTIL MIDNIGHT FOR LAKE AND PORTER COUNTIES IN NW INDIANA. A WIND CHILL WARNING WILL BE IN EFFECT AT MIDNIGHT TONIGHT AND CONTINUE UNTIL FRIDAY AT NOON.
Now....with all that said, this morning's rush hour was atrocious. We mentioned yesterday that snow would be falling just in time for that morning rush. As I watched the radar, it appeared, especially in the far southwest and southern suburbs that snow was falling at the rate of one, maybe two inches/hour. It was awful.
Now this afternoon, we will watch for lake-effect snow bands to develop and hug the Illinois lake-front for a while. Those bands will hit NW Indiana too and be very persistent there thru the evening.
Intense cold will really become entrenched overnight tonight and thru Friday.
