The season’s first taste of sub-zero cold is to be a one-day affair, and a substantial warm-up lies immediately ahead. Warmer air heading this way from the Plains might put down an inch of snow on Christmas—it’s called warm advection snow—but the snow, like the arctic chill, won’t last. Upper level winds turn southwesterly by Sunday, and will remain that way well into next week.
The arrival of warmer air will finally turn off the lake-effect snow machine that has dumped more than two feet of snow across Northwest Indiana in recent days.
But that’s nothing compared to the five-day lake-snow event that buried Buffalo, N.Y., in December 2001. Beginning on Dec. 24, snow squalls brought whiteout conditions that delivered a staggering 81.5 inches of snow (an equivalent water content of 4.49”) over a five-day period—more than twice Chicago’s 40” annual snowfall.
By WGN-TV Meteorologist Richard Koeneman
WGN-TV Chief Meteorologist Tom Skilling and the WGN Weather Center staff provide daily coverage of weather in the Chicago area.
