National Weather Service forecasters warned of bone-chilling temperatures hitting the Chicago area Wednesday night and staying until early Friday.
Officials said the arctic air will cover portions of north-central and northeast Illinois and northwest Indiana. Wind chills are expected to plummet to -10 to -20 by late Wednesday night.
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“It’ll feel pretty nasty out there,” said Ricky Castro, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Chicago.
The arctic air is expected to stick around into Friday.
Castro advised those who can to limit their time spent outside. He also encouraged people to check on loved ones living alone to ensure they’re equipped with heat.
The cold front hitting the region this week is making for a chillier start to December than typical, Castro said. Forecasters, he noted, would usually expect highs in low 40s to upper 30s at this time of year, with lows in the 20s.
Between last weekend’s winter storm — which yielded the city’s snowiest November day on record — and the lasting bout of cold since, Castro said it’s been “quite some time since we’ve had this kind of start to winter,” noting the most comparable starts to the season likely date back to the late 2000s to 2010.
As of Tuesday afternoon, 11.8 inches of snowfall had been observed at O’Hare International Airport, according to Castro. The normal value for the date is 2.2 inches.
Amid the frigid temperatures, the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications (OEMC) is working with the National Weather Service to monitor conditions, the office said in a news release.
“It’s important to be prepared and take safety precautions,” the office stated.
Last Saturday, Cook County saw its first cold-related death of the season after an autopsy found that a 68-year-old woman died from a combination of hypothermia and heart disease near the south suburban Worth Public Library.
Chicago coordinates a network of 284 public facilities that are made available during extreme cold for people to use as a place to get warm, according to the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communication. A map of warming centers can be found at http://bit.ly/3MhmQnA.
Current afternoon conditions at Chicago’s airports are light snow, fog and mist at 29 degrees with a wind chill of -2.
Looking ahead to the weekend, the cold weather is expected to stick around, with temperatures hanging around the mid to upper 20s Saturday through Monday, weather officials say.
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