Chicago weather: Mild days continue but snow and colder temps loom

CHICAGO - Sunday was the eighth consecutive day with above-normal temperatures in the Chicago area. Today will be day nine. Tomorrow will be day 10 and Wednesday will be day 11. You might think there’s no winter in this forecast, but there is. Stay tuned.

Chicago weather forecast

What we know:

Today will become mostly sunny during the afternoon at the latest. It will be about 10° warmer than normal with highs in the lower 40s. Tonight will be mostly clear with lows just above freezing. 

Tomorrow will be mostly cloudy and even milder with a good chance of hitting 50°. There can be a brief rain shower at some point, but it will not be a rainy day. Winds will be up at times gusting more than 25 mph.

On Wednesday it won’t be as warm with highs in the upper 30s and a good deal of cloud cover. There could be a brief snow or rain shower, but no significant snow is expected during this time. The wildcard this week is lake-effect snow. Computer models are emphatic that this will set up during the night Wednesday into early Thursday. 

As we saw in early November, lake-effect events rarely reveal their specifics until hours before they start or even during the snowfall. For example, yesterday‘s computer models brought quite a bit of snow to the western shore of the lake, impacting the city. The latest runs are much farther to the east with the significant snows almost exclusively confined to Indiana and Michigan. This is a period to watch, however, and we will stay on top of it. 

Another system will be moving into the area Friday and Saturday with a light accumulation likely. Both of these days will feature your highs in the 20s. 

Then comes the all-important game day. While we don’t know the exact time of the game yet what does seem certain is that Sunday will be quite cold with highs that may not even reach 20. Windchills could be well below zero during the game, especially if we get the later time slot.