Chicago snow forecast: Up to 4 inches possible starting on Valentine's Day

CHICAGO - Snow is poised to return to Chicagoland just in time to complicate travel for Valentine’s Day evening plans. 

Chicago snow forecast

Timeline:

This will NOT be a replay of the 1990 storm which paralyzed travel on Valentine’s. However, I am quite confident there will be another winter weather advisory hoisted by the weather service by this afternoon to address the system. 

Snow would likely begin by late afternoon-moving in from the west. Snow will fall right through the evening as somewhat "milder" air moves up from the south. 

During the day Saturday, temperatures in at least part of our area could be just warm enough for a mix of precipitation types with the second phase of this storm. That would eat into any additional significant snow totals.

Like yesterday’s storm, I think most totals will end up in the 3-to-4 inch range. Lesser amounts of around an inch or so would be likely well south of I-80. 

Snowfall totals from yesterday's winter storm

Feb. 13, 2015–7 a.m. 

• O’Hare: 2.9 inches
• Midway 2.1 inches
• Gurnee 4.5 inches
• Winthrop Harbor 6 inches
• Downers Grove 4.5 inches
• Elgin 2.6 inches
• Kankakee 3.3 inches
• Barrington 3.4 inches

Dig deeper:

Now the caveat to all of this: One of our more-reliable forecast models continues to display a much more northerly solution for this storm system. This would mean far less snow, especially in the city and points south, as well as more of a mixed bag of precipitation later Friday night and Saturday. 

I’m personally not willing to push in all of my forecast chips at this point. We will continue to monitor this time period very closely.