Suburbs slowly recovering from snow, ice storm

While nothing like Tuesday night or Friday morning's snowstorms is in the immediate future, they've gotten the Chicago area off to an even worse start than last year's notoriously bad winter.

"We're looking at a repeat of last winter," said meteorologist Charles Mott of the National Weather Service. "It's just that there's more moisture coming through our area."

Forecasts called for a chance of light snow Friday evening and throughout the weekend. Highs will be in the low 30s.

Though last winter didn't feel normal to most residents, what's normal can change for extended periods of time as weather moves through cycles, Mott said.

The region may be reverting back to what longtime residents remember from 30 or 40 years ago - when winter often meant huge piles of snow and many canceled school days.

And that was the kind of day the Chicago area had Friday.

Heavy snow slowed traffic, canceled flights, postponed garbage pickup and imposed parking restrictions in some areas. But the closing of most schools across the region made morning road traffic lighter than it might have been.

The National Weather Service said as much as 10 inches of snow was believed to have fallen from Waukegan north to the Wisconsin line. More than 6 inches of snow fell south of Waukegan, while 2 to 4 inches fell south along the I-80 corridor.

There were about two dozen accidents and spin outs reported on highways and tollways in northern Illinois.

Due to the ice storms in the southwest and south suburbs, Metra service was delayed into Chicago by frozen power lines and other weather-related problems.

Throughout the day ComEd saw about 60,000 customers affected by power outages, but no more than 23,000 at any one time.

A heavy concentration of these outages occurred south of Interstate 80, caused largely by ice on power lines and the breaking of snow-heavy tree branches, ComEd spokesman Jeff Burdick said.

At 3 p.m. Friday, there were still about 19,800 customers still without power. Further outages were expected for the same reasons, and crews were slowed by the same road conditions other drivers faced, Burdick added.Customers without electricity are asked to call (800) EDISON-1 and stay away from power lines broken by tree limbs.O'Hare International Airport canceled more than 200 flights Friday, while most other flights were delayed 30 to 45 minutes. About two dozen flights at Midway were canceled, while the rest experienced average delays of 30 minutes or more.Officials are asking people to check for delays and cancellations on incoming and outgoing flights on the Internet before heading to the airports.Flash content