The coldest weather of 2025 so far will hit the Southland region, with single-digit highs and below-zero lows, causing headaches for vehicle owners and public works crews that may be out to repair broken water mains.
The extreme cold can result in cars not starting, and wind chills are expected to make the weather feel even more miserable. Communities in the south and southwest suburbs will have warming centers, such as police stations, open.
The AAA advises vehicle owners, especially those parked outside, to keep gas tanks at least half-full to avoid a fuel line freeze-up, said spokeswoman Molly Hart.
She advised drivers check their vehicle’s battery strength, something that many auto repair shops and auto parts stores will do at no charge.
“Faulty batteries cause more car starting problems than anything else,” Hart said. “At zero degrees, a battery has 30% less starting power.”
After highs in the low 40s Friday, a cold front will move in Saturday night, according to Gino Izzi, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Romeoville.
He said “several days of really cold weather” are in store for the area.
Below-zero temperatures will envelop the region Sunday night and winds from the west and northwest will contribute to the misery, Izzi said. With the wind, the actual temperatures Sunday night could be 20 below, and Monday night could be 10 to 20 below, he said.
He said below-normal temperatures are expected to stick around through the end of the month, with a slight chance of above freezing weather by the end of the week.
Some rain may fall during the day Saturday, Izzi said, but temperatures should remain above freezing.
The extreme cold can also cause problems for communities with older municipal water lines.
Dixmoor has seen its share of water main breaks, and crews in the village were out Thursday fixing a break under 147th Street, with the cold not helping repair efforts, said Travis Akin, spokesman for the village.
“A lot of the improvements they’ve made have helped the situation, but a lot of those pipes are still old,” Akin said.
Officials last September marked the completion of a $3 million project, funded in part by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, to replace a large water main serving much of the community.
Water supply disruptions are not confined to cold winter weather.
Toward the end of July 2022, all 3,500 Dixmoor residents were without clean drinking water following a series of breaks and, in October 2021, main breaks also left residents without water.
Workers tend to a water line break Jan. 24, 2024, at a house in the 14100 block of Winchester Avenue in Dixmoor. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)
Akin said Thursday the village has, so far this winter, not seen “the wholesale problems we have had in the past.”
He said village officials will sit down to “map out where we are and where we need to go to get a handle on funding” to bring the village’s water system up to a more reliable standard.
“They are looking at all sources of funding,” he said. “The needs are still there, they haven’t gone away.”
Joshua Burman, director of public works in Homewood, said the village has seen eight or nine water main breaks in the last couple of weeks.
“That’s pretty high,” he said Thursday. “The infrastructure, it’s aged, and with the penetration of the cold you start to see aged infrastructure start to show signs of weakness.”
He said that something such as vehicles passing over a road can cause breaks for older water lines buried underneath.
“A lot of other municipalities are in the same boat,” Burman said, as far as aging water lines.
mnolan@southtownstar.com
