Quantcast

The DNAinfo archives brought to you by WNYC.
Read the press release here.

Despite Flurries, City Snowless Record is Expected to Continue

By Emily Morris | December 10, 2012 1:57pm | Updated on December 10, 2012 5:07pm
 Cars sit on Lake Shore Drive after accidents and drifting snow stranded the drivers during a Feb. 2, 2011 blizzard.
Cars sit on Lake Shore Drive after accidents and drifting snow stranded the drivers during a Feb. 2, 2011 blizzard.
View Full Caption
Getty Images/Scott Olson

CHICAGO — O'Hare Airport saw some flurries on Monday, but the city's record for the most consecutive "snowless" days in 18 years is likely to continue, weather experts said.

That's because the record, set at 280 days, only applies to "measurable" snow, or precipitation amounting to at least one-tenth of an inch, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Mark Ratzer.

Chicago tied the record on Sunday, and Monday is expected to make 281, according to experts at the National Weather Service Chicago.

The chance of precipitation is hovering at 40 percent for the city, according to the National Weather Service, though Ratzer said the chance of that snow being measurable is less likely. 

It would be the second consecutive year of delayed winter weather in Chicago, which didn't see its first measurable snow until Jan. 2, Ratzer said, when two-tenths of an inch was measured at O'Hare.

The unseasonably warm temps are a major shift from the snow storms from past years, such as the Feb. 2, 2011 "snowpocalypse" that led drivers to abandon their cars on Lake Shore Drive.

The city's warm, dry weather is a hard pattern to kick, said meteorolgist Richard Castro, also with Chicago's National Weather Service.

"It actually kind of feeds upon itself," Castro said about the dry patterns.

And mild temperatures are likely to continue through the weekend, Castro said, when it might be too warm to produce anything but rain.