WINTER STORM UPDATE: 7:55 P.M FRIDAY
Storm wallops areas north and west of Chicago the hardest with 17" snow, drifts up to 4 feet—one of the area's earliest major snowstorms!
Never has so much snow fallen so early across Chicago's west and north suburbs. Storm accumulation reports into our weather office indicate as much as 17 inches at the Kenosha, Wis., Coast Guard Station, 15.2" at Libertyville, 15" at Streamwood and 13" at DeKalb. There were several unconfirmed reports of as much as 19-20" in areas nearby. Drifting has no doubt complicated snow measurement in some areas. A foot of snow was reported by my WGN/Tribune meteorological colleague and longtime National Weather Service forecaster Steve Kahn at Arlington Heights, and 12" was also reported in Mendota while 11" was reported to us in St. Charles by another of my WGN colleagues, Paul Dailey.
The official measurement at Rockford of 10.7" obliterated the old record for that city's greatest snowfall on this date, nearly doubling that site's previous 5.7" set 28 years ago on Dec. 1, 1978. Though falling snow has departed, wind gusts above 30 m.p.h. continue and drifts up to 4 feet high have been reported in the hard-hit area west and north of Chicago. The huge snow tallies dwarf the more moderate tallies observed in Chicago proper where sleet and freezing rain which fell much of the night through 5-6 a.m. this morning cut into storm totals. A layer of warm air aloft and strong, lake-warmed winds off Lake Michigan's 46° Lake Michigan waters, responsible for delaying heavy snow's thundery onset here around daybreak—a development noted as possible in our advisories over recent days—was overcome by the strong "lift" induced with the arrival a powerful band of jet stream winds referred to by meteorologists as a "jet streak." One function of the complex computer models forecasters employ in generating weather forecasts is to track the movement of these powerful pockets of wind aloft, in order to time the onset of vigorous upward air movement which led to the development of 30,000-foot thunderstorms embedded within this morning's storm. An e-mail I received from one of our Chicago viewers indicates the claps of thunder with these storms were so loud, car burglar alarms went off across his neighborhood.
Though not as heavy as the totals to the west, Midway Airport's 3.3" and O'Hare's official 6.2" qualify as the new snow season's heaviest totals to date, and produced a nightmarish morning rush hour for commuters and the hard working folks at Chicago Streets and Sanitation, who were forced to take on the wind-driven, visibility-slashing and occasionally lightning-laced snowfall in wind gusts clocked at one point at 44 m.p.h. Trees and most objects outdoors are snow-covered as this report is filed, lending the city a winter-wonderland type appearance. By contrast, most precipitation fell as rain with brief snows at the end across northern Indiana. At many locations there, only a dusting was reported. And far south suburban locations reported amounts of 1-2" or less.
The powerful storm arrived with quite a history behind it. Its cross-country trek produced 39" of snow near Alta, Utah; 17.8" at Genessee, Colo.; 16" Chanute, Kan.; 18" at Butler, Mo.; and a top snowfall of 15.2" in Illinois at Libertyville in Lake County. At one point Thursday evening, an 1,110 mile swath of the nation's Heartland was under one form or National Weather Service winter weather advisory or another as a result of the huge and powerful early season storm system.
Please check out the storm snow photos our readers and viewers have been kind enough to submit to us. We'll continue posting them for you as they arrive. We'll have complete coverage of the storm and its impact on our area on Friday evening's WGN Nine O'Clock News.
HERE'S A SAMPLING OF SNOW TOTALS IN TO US FROM OBSERVERS ACROSS THE AREA, INCLUDING A NUMBER OF NATIONAL WEATHER OBSERVERS:
NOTE: Several totals have been updated as of 7 p.m. Friday
Sources: National Weather Service co-op observers, WGN viewers
--By Tom Skilling, WGN-TV Chief Meteorologist
