Wintry precipitation and a blast of cold air are on deck for the new year, returning Chicagoans to temperatures typically endured this time of year.
The high on New Year’s Eve is expected to be near 40 degrees before cold air “spills into the area,” plunging us into the mid-20s by Wednesday morning, according to Gino Izzi, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service.
“That’s still a little above normal for low temperatures,” Izzi said. “It’s going to feel colder because we’ve been milder.”
The frigid weather is expected to eliminate dense fog throughout the Chicago area and stick around for a while, with highs expected to remain in the 20s into the first couple of weeks of January.
“When you get a good punch of cold air, it typically dries things out and we lose fog,” he said.
Ahead of the chill, rain is expected to develop Monday night and into Tuesday with a chance of snow, according to the weather service.
“Depending on how quickly the temperatures fall, it’s possible we can see some of that rain turn over to some snow very late Tuesday afternoon into Tuesday evening,” Izzi said. “It’s going to be a little bit of a race between how quickly the temperatures fall versus how quickly the precipitation ends.”
Izzi said that, despite the cold in the forecast, temperatures are actually closer to what is expected as the calendars turn over.
“It varies from year to year,” Izzi said. “Some years we’ve been in the 50s on New Year’s, other years we’ve been below zero.”
The plummet in temperatures isn’t expected to be as steep as it was around New Year’s Day 2011, when the mercury fell from 53 degrees on New Year’s Eve to 14 degrees by the end of New Year’s Day.
“It’s well within the bounds of what we normally get as far as temperature drops,” Izzi said.