The three-day rain event which began Wednesday finally came to an end Friday after dousing the city with record rainfall. Storm totals that reached 1.70” at Midway and 1.58” at O’Hare included a new daily rainfall record for Dec. 22 of 0.90” at O’Hare. The heavy rainfall was a product of the same storm system that brought upwards of 4 feet of snow to western portions of the Denver area. That this storm would produce rain—not snow—here was pretty clear from the start, but in a colder environment and a more eastern storm track, Chicagoans would have been digging out from a major pre-Christmas snowstorm. As colder air feeds into this storm, heavy snow warnings have been posted for parts of northern Wisconsin and Upper Michigan where up to a foot of snow may fall.
A mild weekend is on tap for Chicago, but colder air arriving on Christmas along with an evolving storm system to our east may bring enough snow to whiten the ground here by Christmas night.
--By Paul Dailey, WGN Weather Center Meteorologist
WGN-TV Chief Meteorologist Tom Skilling and the WGN Weather Center staff provide daily coverage of weather in the Chicago area.
