The season’s first hint of winter was expected late Wednesday with snowfall expected throughout much of the suburbs.
That will be followed by the first freeze of the year anticipated early Thursday morning, one of the latest on record, weather records show.
But National Weather Service meteorologists say you probably won’t need to break out the snow shovels just yet.
Accumulation is expected to be minimal Wednesday evening, but slushier amounts are expected during the morning commute Thursday.
Snow will give way to more rain Thursday afternoon, with high winds also anticipated for most of the day, making road travel riskier, forecasters warn.
Temperatures are expected to dip below freezing for the first time this season sometime early Thursday morning, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Gino Izzo.
If the thermometer hits 32 degrees or lower Thursday, it will be the fourth-latest freeze on record for the Chicago area. However, that comes with a pretty big asterisk, Izzo said.
“The other three freezes that happened later than this year’s were all taken when the official weather station was downtown and not at O’Hare (International Airport),” he said. “Downtown tends to be warmer than the current observation site because of Lake Michigan and all the buildings that absorb the heat in the day and radiate it at night.”
The latest freeze on record for Chicago was Nov. 24, 1931, weather service records show. Nov. 23, 1902 is the second-latest freeze, while Nov. 22, 1918, was the third latest.
Forecasts call for the season’s first snowfall late Wednesday into Thursday afternoon.
Courtesy of the National Weather Service
Since the area’s official weather observation station was moved to O’Hare, the latest freeze recorded there was Nov. 13, 1975, Izzo said.
“So, this will beat that record by a significant margin,” he noted.
The late freeze does not portend any significant weather phenomenon or indicate winter will last longer somehow, Izzo explained.
“There’s not a real correlation to anything in the future, unfortunately,” he said, then joked, “You need a groundhog for that.”
Meanwhile, daily high temperatures are expected to remain in the mid- to upper-40s through the weekend.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
