Even though Chicago’s official high was only 33 degrees Wednesday, it still marked the seventh consecutive day with above-normal temperatures. With the westerly upper-air wind pattern becoming more southwesterly, milder temperatures are ahead. Friday’s forecast high of 43 degrees would be the highest so far this year, and Saturday looks to approach the 40-degree mark.
This steady diet of seasonably mild temperatures has depleted our snow cover, creating many bare spots. The light snowfall on Wednesday did little to enhance the patchy blanket of snow, except for a narrow band of heavy snow across the area’s southernmost counties — reports of 4 inches of new snow came from Somonauk and Leland in LaSalle County, with many other 2-inch-plus totals along the band that extended back to the west and east into Indiana.
The next widespread accumulating snow looks to be coming Sunday, when the upper-air current shifts northwest, steering a center of low pressure out of Canada through northeast Illinois.
