Chicago Area Local News

CHICAGO (CBS) ― Tired of the snow? Get ready for dangerously bitter winds and wind chill values of 30-below Wednesday night, with those frigid temperatures expected to last until Friday. The temperatures will mark some of the coldest the Chicago region has experienced in years.

The National Weather Service has issued a wind chill warning, meaning the combination of very cold air and strong winds will create dangerously low wind chill values. The temperatures will result in frost bite and could lead to hypothermia or death if precautions are not taken.

Despite the frigid temperatures, considerable blowing and drifting snow is expected to continue throughout the night, with wind gusts of up to 30 mph estimated.

The bitterly cold Arctic air and strong winds will produce wind chills of 30-below or colder with the wind chill warning in effect until noon Friday, the weather service said.

Temperatures Wednesday night drop to a low of 12-below, with the wind chill value estimated as low as 31-below. Although Thursday will see a bit of sunshine, the high will reach a mere 2-below, with the wind chill expected to hover at 31-below. The low Thursday will be 15-below.

The last time the low was colder than 10-below was Jan. 5, 1999, when it was a bone-chilling 16-below. Highs Thursday afternoon may also remain just below zero. If the high fails to reach zero, it would be the first time since Feb. 3, 1996, when the high was 5-below.

As CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot reports we haven't felt temperatures like this in more than a decade. That's why the head of the Department of Family Support Services took to the streets Wednesday night, offering help to the city's most helpless - the homeless.

"They have a place to go," said Cmsr. Mary Ellen Caron. "We care about them."

And while you may think you can handle it, it doesn't hurt to be reminded of important cold weather facts.

When exposed to the extreme cold, your body begins to lose heat faster than it can be produced. That's when hypothermia can set in.

"People should notice the change in their mental status - confused, disoriented, almost like they're drunk - but they haven't had anything to drink," said Cmsr. Dr. Terry Mason, Chicago Department of Public Health.

Some other warning signs of hypothermia are drowsiness, confusion and memory loss.

"The main thing we want to make sure is that seniors, children - the extremes of ages are the ones that are very, very vulnerable to this - so, we want to make sure that they are well-protected and supervised," Mason said.

Warning signs for hypothermia in an infant are bright red, cold skin and a child with very low energy. Anyone with a temperature below 95 degrees should get medical help right away because a body temperature that low is an emergency situation.

Persistent snow throughout the day Wednesday prompted the cancellation of more than 300 flights at O'Hare Airport with delays at 8:30 p.m. averaging 30 minutes, according to the city Dept. of Aviation.

At Midway, all flights are being delayed about 30 minutes with only minor cancellations reported.

Passengers are asked to check their airline's Web site or contact by phone to check the status of their flights.

Earlier today, sloppy snowfall swept through the frigid air and bitter, dangerous cold will prevail for the next several days.

Snow and cold temperatures are both miserable enough when they occur separately, but on Wednesday morning, Chicagoans woke up to both at the same time. CBS 2's Ed Curran said accumulations may amount to 2 to 6 inches.

A wind chill warning is in effect until noon Friday, and a winter weather advisory is in effect until midnight.

Lake effect snow will continue even longer in Northwest Indiana than in Chicago, particularly in Porter and LaPorte counties, where a lake effect snowfall of 5 to 10 inches is possible.

That, combined with the increased winds, is making travel difficult through those Indiana counties.

As the morning rush kicked into high gear, expressways were at a standstill throughout the Chicago area. At the height of the morning rush hour, travel times were exceeding two hours on all the major expressways. On the Kennedy, a trip downtown from O'Hare took two and a half hours.

CBS 2's Susan Carlson reports spinouts and crashes were seen all over area roadways, and travel times were the worst seen in years.

"They were terrible. They were really bad. I mean slipping and sliding, and the streets weren't salted properly, I don't think. It was really dangerous," Chicago driver Felice Hawkins said.

Spin outs and crashes added to the traffic problem, and drivers using side streets to try to avoid the mess didn't fare so well either.

"It was just single line traffic, and you just went car by car," commuter Harvey Friedman said. "Traffic was just quite slow."

As of 8:30 a.m., the Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation had dispatched 270 snow fighting trucks to clear the main streets and Lake Shore Drive.

"This is a case of getting through the morning rush hour, and then making some headway and putting down more salt, and doing touch-ups as we go along," department spokesman Matt Smith said earlier in the morning.

Calcium chloride helps the salt work more effectively in cold temperatures, but the department still recommends motorists drive with caution.

Illinois State Police have enacted their emergency accident plan, in which motorists involved in accidents are asked to exchange insurance information and contact police later if their cars are both drivable.

Meanwhile, the temperatures are already bitter for the average snowy day, but they're set to plummet well into the negative zone.

Overnight, temperatures are expected to drop to dangerously frigid lows – -4 in downtown Chicago, and as low as -12 in the suburbs. Wind chills could drop as low as near -30 on Wednesday night and -35 on Thursday night.

As CBS 2's Joanie Lum reports, there has already been almost as much snow this season as is typical for an entire winter. Snow fatigue is settling in for many Chicagoans a couple of months early, but many people are tough.

"You know, you deal with it. I've been here for 10 years now, and this is turning out to be the fiercest winter yet that I've encountered, but what are you going to do?" said Oak Park businessman Jack Jankowski.

Jankowski owns a bakery, and he works in an environment warm enough that he went out to shovel the snow in shorts so his customers could get by.

As CBS 2's Mai Martinez reports, those who were lucky enough not to have to tackle the roadways Wednesday morning still had plenty of work to do clearing away all the snow left behind by the weather system.

With single-digit temperatures and wind chills near negative 30 predicted for Wednesday night and Thursday, Annemarie Olson says she couldn't bear the thought of having to deal with the mess later.

"It sounds like it's going to be really bad, so you just want to get ahead of everything because it's just going to wind up freezing," the Edgebrook resident said.

That's exactly what has drivers concerned about Thursday commute and just getting around in general.

"If it was only the cold, it would be OK, but you have the snow with the cold, so that's kind of making everything freeze up, so it's really bad," Hawkins said.

The STNG Wire contributed to this report.

(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

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