Did Someone Say Global Warming?

Not in this city my friends .
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The story below exemplifies the reasoning behind an age old phrase used here quite often year after year going back as long as I've been alive in Chicago...

If you don't like the weather, just wait a few minutes.

Wild Weather: 50 To 0 In A Matter Of Hours:

"CHICAGO (CBS) ― Whether you are driving, riding the bus, taking the train or hailing a cab, it's a must to bundle up and leave plenty of extra time to get to work, with snow on the ground and temperatures 40 to 50 degrees lower than they were 24 hours ago.

As CBS 2's Rafael Romo reports, any way you slice it, it is ugly outside as winter makes its presence felt again.

At this time on Tuesday morning, you could walk out the door with a light jacket and feel perfectly comfortable. Temperatures ranged from 47 to 50 degrees – conditions more befitting of late March or early April.

But as predicted, in blew a winter storm that began with whipping, blowing snow, followed by a drop of nearly 50 degrees in a matter of hours."

By early morning, the snow had moved on to western Michigan, but the cold, combined with the snow and ice already on the ground, made for misery on the roads.

CBS 2 Meteorologist Don Schwenneker reported the temperature at 5 a.m. was -1 at O'Hare International Airport, 0 and Midway International Airport, and 3 degrees downtown. But the wind chills brought misery, not to mention danger, with -24 at O'Hare, -22 at Midway, and in Aurora, -26.

A blowing snow advisory and a wind chill warning are in effect until noon Wednesday.

Sunshine is expected later in the day, but across the area, temperatures are not expected to climb out of the teens.

Meanwhile, the aftermath of the snowstorm is causing a maelstrom of trouble.

Thirteen hundred ComEd customers were without power as of the 5 a.m. hour. Of those, 200 were in Chicago, 200 in the western suburbs, and 900 in the south suburbs. Earlier in the morning, 8,000 customers were without power.

At the airports, it is also a real mess, with 350 flights canceled and delays running about 90 minutes at O'Hare. Meanwhile at Midway, delays are averaging about 30 minutes and a dozen flights have been canceled.

It is also the kind of winter storm that spells danger for drivers.

"It's horrible. You can't see nothing," said motorist Dominick Zmico. "You drive 20 miles an hour all the way."

High winds, blowing snow, and slippery roads created many problems Wednesday morning. In Crestwood, a car went into a ditch, and across the area, visibility was another issue.

"It's like you can barely see one car-length in front of you. You can't see the lines. You can't see nothing," said driver David Johnson.

At a gas station in Frankfort, the blinding high winds made filling up a challenge. Several drivers decided to wait out the storm inside the station.

"We have guys coming in that have been on this earth 50 and 60 years living in Chicago and has never in their lives driven in anything like this," said gas station attendant Darlene Thompson. "They say it's madness. You can't see two feet in front of you."

"It's pretty torrential," added driver Bill Hanus. "I remember this when I was about eleven years old. I was delivering newspapers in the blizzard of '79, and it's pretty wicked out there."

Snow plows with the Illinois Department of Transportation were having a hard time keeping up.

At a Wal-Mart in Country Club Hills, two shoppers could not even get back to their cars.

"We couldn't even get across the parking or get to the car," said shopper Roberta Raymond. "It was that cold outside. Oh, my gosh. My head almost blew off in this."

The city Department of Streets and Sanitation had its 273 snow fighting trucks out on main roads all night, but shifted to side streets from 5:30 a.m. to 7 a.m. The narrowest side streets were treated beginning at midnight by 24 smaller plows, the department said.

The high for Wednesday is only 15, but later in the week, highs will climb back into the 30s.

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