Heavy snow greeted residents in Northern Illinois as they awoke Friday morning. Crews worked to clean up city streets and highways, but many drivers still faced difficult travel.
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00:00 Well, the heavy wet snow of Friday has been replaced with bitter cold and
00:05 Accuweather real field temperatures dropping below zero. The snow that fell
00:10 on Friday was heavy. It came down at rates that were quite amazing
00:14 sometimes to see causing some travel issues, but fortunately not as bad as it
00:19 could have been
00:19 heavy snow greeted most folks in northern Illinois as they wake in
00:26 Friday morning here in Rockford, crews were already out in force working city
00:29 streets while area highways were on the top of the list for crews to keep clear.
00:33 These snowflakes are the size of ping pong balls. These things are huge. Snow
00:39 rates across the region top 2 to 3 inches per hour at times, but
00:42 temperatures near the ground hovering just a hair above freezing kept most of
00:46 the treated roadways just wet and slushy. But despite the better than could
00:50 have been road conditions, not all drivers had an easy go of it. You can
00:53 barely see it back there, but we were hydroplaning and kind of lost control
00:59 and got stuck in here. We almost got out
01:01 and then got ourselves stuck again. We're hopefully having a pickup truck
01:08 try and drag us out. Our combined efforts helped get him out of the snow,
01:12 but others in more difficult situations were left waiting for bigger help to
01:15 arrive. As night fell, snow tapered into flurries, but bitter cold air turned
01:19 some roads very slick, keeping crews busy well into the night, assisting
01:23 drivers who found themselves wandering off the pavement. Light snow and gusty
01:26 winds continued overnight, giving way to a little sun and a whole lot of cold
01:31 early on Saturday.
01:32 Areas here in northern Illinois will catch a break from the snow, but the
01:36 cold is really going to take hold as we see temperatures tonight dropping below
01:41 zero. Those actual weather real feels could be dropping anywhere from 15 to
01:45 25 below zero. So bitter arctic air in place a little bit of light snow
01:50 possible as we get later into the weekend out here, but the heavy, heavy
01:54 accumulating snow moved on out and folks here will enjoy a little bit of
01:58 sunshine on your Saturday reporting from Rockford, Illinois for Accuweather.
02:02 I'm meteorologist Tony law back.