Temperatures rise — barely— after Chicago’s coldest December day in nearly 40 years

CHICAGO - Temperatures slightly improved Saturday after the coldest December day recorded in Chicago in nearly 40 years, according to the National Weather Service.

The mercury topped out at minus 1 on Friday, the most frigid December temperature felt in the city since 1983.

Temperatures climbed to 1 degree early Saturday after a brutal 29 consecutive hours below zero.

While it certainly didn’t feel much better, the city was poised for an 11-degree increase from Friday, as wind gusts went from the 45-to-50 mph range down to a still bone-chilling 30-to-35 mph, according to NWS meteorologist Brian Leatherwood.

Wind chills still were projected to sink as low as 25 degrees below zero for Christmas Eve, forecasters said.

Highs were forecasted to be in the single digits to teens on Christmas Day, with a possibility of accumulating snow late Sunday into early Monday.

Despite the string of cold days, Leatherwood expects temperatures to improve throughout the week.

"At some point, that high pressure [system] is going to shift off to the south and to our east and the strong northerly winds are going to become strong southerly winds that are going to bring all that warm air from down south," Leatherwood told the Sun-Times.

He said highs are "expected to reach the lower 40s by Wednesday and could push 50 degrees by next weekend."

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Leatherwood added the drastic swing in temperature in the city is not normal, but also not unheard of.

"We’re in the La Niña, which is where you can see these extreme weather systems that move through … It throws all this arctic air at you, but then it tries to transition back to a little bit more of a ‘not as cold’ scenario that we would normally have in the winter."

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Temperatures for New Year’s weekend were expected to be above normal, though rain is a possibility Saturday into Sunday.

"Sometimes when you get into these La Niña situations where overall the temperatures are above normal, it tends to be a lot wetter," Leatherwood said. "Whether that precipitation is going to be liquid, frozen or snow is hard to determine … It’s not going to be blue skies, though that can change."