What a difference a year makes.
Although forecasters say a strong El Nino in the Pacific Ocean means a milder winter with less snow for northern Illinois, Mother Nature decided to kick off the 2015-16 season in the Fox Valley with a dump of wet, heavy snow. Snow totals were expected to range from 12 inches to 6 inches in the area.
In comparison, Elgin and the Fox Valley didn’t see its first significant snowfall of the 2014-15 season until January 9.
While winter announced its presence Friday night, the snow that continued Saturday is not expected to stick around for very long. Daytime highs are expected to reach the mid-40s by midweek, and hit the mid-50s on Thanksgiving Day.
“It will be gone by next week,” said Amy Seeley, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Romeoville office.
Snow was still coming down mid-afternoon, so it was hard to finalize what snow totals would be, Seeley said. The heaviest snow centered north of Rockford on the Illinois-Wisconsin border, with other pockets showing higher totals in other spots, too.
While some Elgin residents reported about 8 inches of the white stuff in driveways, some parts of Carpentersville was totals closer to 10 or 12 inches.
The wet, heavy snow also downed tree branches and power lines, said officials at the Elgin Police Department. Many reports of large branches and wires coming down blocked streets Saturday morning were reported through the department’s Facebook feed help keep motorists away from those areas.
Unlike last year’s first snowfall, which led to several crashes when it started during a Friday rush hour, there were not many reports of bad accidents in Elgin, said Cmdr. Dan O’Shea.
Some crash victims sought treatment at area hospitals. Officials at Advocate Sherman Hospital said their emergency room was seeing patients from slip-and-fall injuries, minor injuries from auto accidents, hand injuries from snow blowers, and heart-related issues from snow shoveling.
The Kane County Sheriff’s office also reminded motorists to turn on their headlights even during daylight hours so other motorists could see them through the heavy snowfall.
Although the snow stopped by mid-afternoon and temperatures are supposed to rise this week, Saturday night’s low temperatures are expected to dip into the single digits.
That forecast also opened up the emergency homeless shelter at First United Methodist Church. City rules only allow that shelter to open if overnight lows are expected to dip below 10 degrees.
Once the snow stops, city crews will begin pushing from curb-to-curb, said Chris Tiedt, senior engineer for operations at Elgin’s street department. Crews started prepping for the snow Friday morning by pre-treating streets, and began actively moving snow at about 7:30 p.m., when snow sticking to the pavement reached 1 1/2 inches.
Because snow started as it was getting dark Friday, there were probably fewer cars on the road, which also helped Saturday morning, Tiedt said. With fewer cars, the plows were able to do their work faster, he said.
Snow routes are in effect, which means people should not park on those thoroughfares until the roads are clean curb to curb. Officials also ask people to not park in the street if possible, allowing a larger swath of side streets to get clear.
Janelle Walker is a freelance reporter for The Courier-News.
