Rainy start to 2023 in Chicago plus above average temps – Watching Winter Live

WATCHING WINTER LIVE — From snow and blistering cold last week to rain and above average temperatures this week, the New Year holiday in Chicago will be vastly different from Christmas weekend.

The storm, which continually shifted north over the Great Lakes in the days leading up to the weekend, dropped more than four feet of snow in the Buffalo, NY and Watertown, NY regions and killed at least 34 people. Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz called the blizzard “the worst storm probably in our lifetime,” even for an area known for heavy snow.

WGN’s Chip Brewster and News Nation meteorologist Gerard Jebaily looked at what made this storm different from the snow Buffalo and Watertown are used to getting.

They also went over the latest weather data which shows a significant, sustained warm-up for Chicago alongside multiple chances for rain. Gerard expects this pattern to last for the next 8-14 days after which he believes arctic air will return along with more seasonal average temperatures.

Topics for this week’s show included:

• What happened in Upstate New York
• A warm-up with rain coming to Eastern U.S.
• Multiple rain / snow storms coming to Western U.S.
• The latest extended and seasonal outlooks

Watch the full livestream in the video above.

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