In a winter that more often than not has kept arctic outbreaks and snow coming,
February's weather has offered a bit of a reprieve. Not only has the month averaged temperatures
4 degrees above normal, it's running 4.5 degrees milder than the same period a year ago.
February snowfall has been a fraction of December's ( 21.9 inches) and January's (21.5
inches), totaling just 0.2 inches at O'Hare Airport. A normal February sees 8.3 inches of
snow -- more than 40 times this month's tally to date. But as any longtime Chicagoan will
tell you, winter snows are fickle. Nearly a third of Chicago's seasonal snow has fallen
beyond this date and forecasters are monitoring two systems for possible accumulations.
The storm responsible for 3-inch rains in California on Monday (a storm which prompted a
special marine warning in San Francisco Bay and brought 2 feet or more of snow to the
mountains surrounding Los Angeles) is the first under scrutiny. Forecasters are anxious to
see how computer projections of the system evolve once it moves into the land-based U.S.
weather balloon network. The system appears to have the potential to produce sticking
snow in Chicago later Wednesday. A second lake-enhanced snow could reach Chicago Friday
night into Saturday.
--Tom Skilling, Chief Meteorologist, WGN-TV/Chicago Tribune
WGN-TV Chief Meteorologist Tom Skilling and the WGN Weather Center staff provide daily coverage of weather in the Chicago area.
