Heavy snowfall started to fall Saturday night over Lower Michigan and northern Ohio and is expected to continue today with anywhere from 5 to 15 inch storm totals forecast. Saturday over northeast Illinois temperatures hovered in the 30s a good part of the day, ending up with most highs reaching the lower 40s. High temperature at Northerly Island was 38°. These readings along with northerly winds gusting in excess of 30 mph gave afternoon wind chills in the mid to upper 20s. The National Weather service had issued freeze warnings for most of Illinois early this Sunday morning. It looks like the week ahead for Chicagoans will see high temperatures staying in a fairly narrow range—averaging about 7° below normal. Clouds and rain are likely Later Monday night through Tuesday into Wednesday and again later Friday into Saturday.

We’re heading into the 17th weekend of 2005—a time of year when highs ought be in the low 60s. Yet, Chicago’s predicted temps Saturday and Sunday will hold to just 41° and 45°—readings which are cooler than the 41° and 54° highs which occurred back on Jan. 1-2, the year’s first weekend.
This puts the area in rare temperature territory. Together with Friday’s 46°, additional 40s both Saturday and Sunday mean the city is in the midst of a three-day string of 40s. That doesn’t happen often. The infrequency with which three consecutive days in late April hold to the 40s is clear from Chicago weather records. Only four such periods have been recorded here since 1940.
These unseasonably chilly temperatures along with cloud-level readings only in the teens and low 20s mean at least some of the snowflakes which form in these clouds may survive the trip down to ground level. If so, they would be the first so late in a season since 1994.