Chicago weather Thursday: Winter storm could dump several inches of snow, bring blizzard conditions - WLS-TV

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CHICAGO (WLS) -- A Chicago wintertime tempest this week is forecast to dump respective inches of snowfall connected the country connected Thursday and Friday up of the Christmas holiday, and bring precise beardown winds and unsafe upwind chills.

The National Weather Service has issued a Winter Storm Watch for the full Chicago country and northwest Indiana.

The alert is successful effect from 9 a.m. Thursday until Saturday astatine 6 a.m. for DeKalb, Kane, Kendall, Grundy, Livingston and McHenry counties. For the remainder of the Chicago area, the alert is successful effect from noon Thursday until 6 a.m. Saturday, with the alert starting astatine 3 p.m. for areas successful northwest Indiana.

ABC7 Chicago Meteorologist Larry Mowry said the timing of the tempest has moved up, and it is present expected to deed earlier successful the time connected Thursday. That means the occidental suburbs could commencement seeing snowfall by 9 a.m. Thursday, with the metropolis seeing snowfall by noon and northwest Indiana by 3 p.m.

Models amusement overmuch little snowfall totals than predicted Monday, erstwhile models were predicting up to 19 inches of snowfall successful immoderate areas adjacent the lake. Now the models are showing a scope of 3 to 8 inches, with galore areas seeing little than 6 inches of snow, Mowry said.

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But it volition beryllium hard to measurement the nonstop magnitude of snowfall due to the fact that highly precocious winds, implicit 50 miles per hour, volition beryllium a large diagnostic of the storm. They volition pb to blizzard conditions and the menace of powerfulness outages, and utmost question difficulties from blowing snowfall reducing visibility, Mowry said.

The anticipation of powerfulness outages is peculiarly unsafe due to the fact that the precise precocious winds volition compound utmost cold, producing upwind chill temperatures astir -20 to -30. After the storm, forecasted highs volition conflict to ascent retired of the azygous digits, and nighttime clip lows are apt to beryllium beneath zero.

At those temperatures, it is imaginable to get frostbite successful arsenic small arsenic 10 to 20 minutes.

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The forecast for this week has forced galore vacation travelers to scramble to alteration their plans. Most airlines presently person upwind waivers successful place, which means you tin alteration your flights for escaped if you person flexible question plans.

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Salt trucks lined up successful Elk Grove Village Tuesday similar they were preparing for battle; and, successful a sense, they were.

"Pretty overmuch everybody tin outsource everything else, but you can't outsource snowfall removal. This is beauteous overmuch what our guys unrecorded for and look guardant to each twelvemonth long," said Colby Basham of Elk Grove Village Public Works.

With plentifulness of pb clip earlier the storm, they are spending immoderate of it to load the tanks up with the beet foodstuff that combines with brackish to wide the roads.

The aforesaid could beryllium seen successful different suburbs similar Oak Forest. Because it's the archetypal snowfall lawsuit of the season, astir towns person a afloat proviso of salt.

"Last twelvemonth was truthful mild we person a afloat brackish dome and different location afloat of brackish arsenic well, truthful we are beauteous good stocked to get this play going," said Vince Kilcullen, with Algonquin General Services.

Gas is different story. The precocious outgo of diesel is overmuch much than what galore towns planned on, and apt to propulsion budgets into the red.

Suburban nationalist works directors are intimately pursuing the forecast, and took portion successful a telephone with the National Weather Service. Federal exigency absorption officials are urging radical to beryllium cautious and reconsider their question plans.

In the city, folks flocked to hardware stores, supermarkets and the Mag Mile to hole for the storm.

Many utilized Tuesday to banal up connected provisions astatine bustling market stores, which are apt to get busier arsenic the tempest gets closer. And hardware stores similar JC Licht Ace Hardware successful Bridgeport said stone salt, snowfall melt and shovels person been selling fast. Snow throwers are particularly popular, fixed the magnitude of snowfall expected.

"There'd been a shortage of snowfall throwers implicit the past mates years with the proviso concatenation and with COVID, truthful present the vendors are starting to reload, present we're backmost successful stock, truthful we could beryllium having immoderate of the pent up request from the past mates years, arsenic well," said Jeremy Melnick, VP of Hardware astatine JC Licht.

And last-minute shoppers arsenic good arsenic immoderate who placed vacation acquisition orders online flocked to the stores, incapable to hold immoderate longer. Some were getting an earlier commencement than their accustomed Christmas Eve buying plans, portion others were nary longer assured successful their online orders arriving successful time, truthful were retired buying backup gifts.

ComEd said it is positioning radical and instrumentality to beryllium capable to respond rapidly to imaginable powerfulness outages.

"We are positioning our radical and instrumentality to respond rapidly and safely to immoderate interruptions that effect from this snowstorm," said Terence Donnelly, president and COO of ComEd. "We recognize that immoderate interruption is an inconvenience to our customers, particularly during the holidays. Avoiding powerfulness outages and restoring work rapidly is critical. We person strengthened our strategy implicit the years to trim the impacts a tempest similar this tin person connected our customers."

ComEd customers tin substance OUT to 26633 (COMED) to study an outage and person restoration accusation arsenic good arsenic pursuing ComEd connected Twitter oregon connected Facebook. Customers tin besides telephone 1-800 EDISON1 (1-800-334-7661), oregon study outages via the website astatine ComEd.com/report oregon usage the ComEd app.

ComEd warns radical ne'er to attack a downed powerfulness enactment and not to attack ComEd crews to inquire them astir restoration times arsenic they whitethorn beryllium moving connected unrecorded electrical equipment.

City leaders are acceptable to speech astatine the Office of Emergency Management astatine 11 a.m. Wednesday to item however Chicago is preparing for the storm.