Feb 5, 2008 7:44 pm US/Central
Area Hit With Mix Of Snow, Rain And Sleet
CHICAGO (Sun-Times Media Wire) ―
Super Tuesday has proved to be a tough day for travelers with more than 300 flights canceled at the city's airports and a mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain hitting the Chicagoland area prompting a winter storm warning and up to a foot of snow possible in some areas.
The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for Cook, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, DeKalb, Winnebago and Boone counties in effect Tuesday evening through Wednesday evening.
According to a National Weather Service meteorologist, northern suburbs in Winnebago, Boone, McHenry and Lake counties have already seen snow accumulation between 1-to 2-inches. A combination of sleet and freezing rain is currently falling with periods of snow in areas just south of the northern suburbs, as of 6:45 p.m.
Currently, it is raining south of I-80 and the weather system is moving northwest towards downtown Chicago, with total snow accumulations in the city predicted to be between 6-to 9-inches, he said. Snow accumulations of a foot or more are possible by early Wednesday in the northern suburbs, north central and northeast Illinois.
As of 6:35 p.m. Tuesday, O'Hare International Airport had 300 cancellations, and Midway Airport has 30 flights canceled, according to Chicago Department of Aviation spokeswoman Karen Pride.
Approximately 24 flights at Midway have delays of 15 minutes to one hour, Pride said. Delays at O'Hare range from 30 minutes to one hour.
A Traffic Management Program is in effect for inbound flights arriving at O'Hare, causing some delays averaging 2 hours and 25 minutes because of the weather and low visibility, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Snow Command is monitoring the present weather system, ready and waiting for the precipitation to turn from rain to snow, according to a release from the city's Department of Streets and Sanitation.
As of Tuesday evening, Snow Command has a dozen drivers on their regular shifts but is ready to deploy the full main fleet of 273 Snow Fighting Trucks, or smaller deployments of our trucks, as needed.
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(Source: Sun-Times Media Wire © Chicago Sun-Times 2009. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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