Big snows hit the Rockies from Colorado north to Wyoming and Montana Friday–just one element of a developing autumn storm system responsible for Saturday’s gusty south winds and near-60(degrees) highs across the Chicago area, where steady rains could reach 0.50″ Saturday night. It’s possible a thunderstorm could be embedded with the wet weather. Across parts of the northern and central Rockies, the storm has unleashed 2 foot accumulations amid 50 m.p.h. gusts. Its meteorological behavior, which at first glance, seems at odds with the system’s tropical origin more than a week ago in the south Pacific, where it blossomed into a full-blown typhoon. Having long since shed its tropical characteristics–such as anomalous warmth aloft and homogenously warm temperatures systemwide–the now extratropical (non-tropical) system is to tug a new mass of frigid early season arctic air into the nation’s Heartland, a development expected to promote snowfall from northern Nebraska east to Iowa and sections of the Upper Midwest. The blustery, winterlike chill expected to reach Chicago could mean snow showers Sunday afternoon into Monday.
Sources: Frank Wachowski, various computer model forecasts
WGN-TV/Stephen Holcomb and Zach Rodeghero
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Tom Skilling is chief meteorologist at WGN-TV. His forecasts can be seen Monday through Friday on WGN-TV News at noon and 9 p.m.
WGN-TV meteorologists Steve Kahn, Richard Koeneman and Paul Dailey plus weather producer Bill Snyder contribute to this page.
