‘Tis the season for the possibility of heavy snow to hit Chicago this weekend — wintry weather that has prompted Christmas tree lots to protect their precious abundance of Frasers, Balsams, White Pines destined for living rooms.

“What do they call it? The calm before the storm?” John Tuttle said on a chilly, sunny Friday morning from a tree lot where he works outside St. Matthias School in Lincoln Square, knowing that he will have to cover up the trees before the day is out.

“We don’t like seeing the snow coming. But, you know, you’ve got to deal with it. It’s Mother Nature,” James Potocnik, of Poor Bob’s Tree Land in the Forest Glen community, said from his lot earlier in the morning. “We would rather have snow than rain. But we’d rather have warm weather.”

Forecasters are anticipating a winter storm to roll through the region starting late Friday. Snow was expected to fall heavily at times — up to an inch per hour, especially during the day Saturday.

With the storm will come a bout of cold, according to Zachary Yak, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Chicago.

As the system, which was spinning around the northern Rocky Mountains Friday afternoon, heads east toward Chicago, it is poised to “pull a lot more colder air out of Canada,” Yak said. That cold air, Yak continued, is then expected to “kind of become locked across the Great Lakes and our neck of the woods here for most of the upcoming week.”

“Just with that pattern in place, we’re not going to have a lot of opportunities to break out of the cold,” he said.

The chill sets in Sunday, with temperatures possibly dipping into the single digits. For the start of December, the highs Monday and Tuesday are forecast in the low- to mid-20s. Daytime temperatures could rise slightly as the week goes on, but overnight temperatures are expected to hover around the single digits to teens, Yak said.

Saturday’s storm and the subsequent cold spell are in line with a typical winter season, Yak said. But because the past few winters have been fairly mild, Yak added, the coming days may feel snowier and colder by comparison.

On Friday, the Illinois Department of Transportation and Illinois State Police issued a travel warning about the weather headed for much of the northern half of Illinois, urging the public to plan for worsening road conditions, including reduced visibility, slippery pavement and travel delays, beginning at night and lasting through the weekend.

Statewide, IDOT said it was preparing for 7 to 10 inches of snow in the Chicago area. Up to 15 inches of heavy, wet snow was expected in northwest Illinois, including the Quad Cities and Rockford, and as much as a foot in the Macomb, Peoria and Lasalle-Peru areas.

“While we are prepared and ready to devote all of our resources to the latest winter weather event, this weekend’s storm will hit when millions of people are returning home from the holiday,” IDOT Secretary Gia Biagi said in a statement. “Please make a plan to keep you and your loved ones safe, including adjusting travel so you are not on the roads when conditions are at their worst.”

At Poor Bob’s Friday, an employee used a chain saw to remove tree stumps as customers trickled into the lot which sits near a Lutheran church.

Potocnik explained how he or others working at the lot planned on using tarps to cover any trees that are already laid down as the day progresses, in addition to cleaning up around the lot to make sure there are no branches or pieces of stump lying around.

Kevin Field helps George and Sarah Yates secure their tree at the tree lot outside St. Matthias School in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Chicago on Nov. 28, 2025. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)

They also pile trees on top of each other, he said. There could be five, 10 or 20 of them with snow while the others underneath are in good shape, he said. In that situation, the trees impacted by snow would be set aside for a time while the sun melts it, he said.

“We’ll cover everything up that we can. Tarps are cheap,” said Potocnik.

He said their trees can go for as little as $60 but as much as a couple hundred, underscoring the importance of protecting them during inclement weather.

“We’re just trying to keep our trees looking good. And, you know, not damaging them. There’s been snowstorms down here. I remember, oh, probably seven, eight years ago we had one where, I mean, I came out and all the trees are flipped over and branches are broken and it’s one of those things,” said Potocnik, who has worked at the lot for about a decade. “I mean, it’s not a cheap investment we’ve got sitting here.”

While the snow at times might be a source of frustration for Potocnik, he said it could still be good for business since customers seem happy with it.

“Everyone seems to get the little Christmas cheer going on,” he said.

Christy Webber Farm & Garden in Humboldt Park had a bustling Black Friday, but store manager Marina Post didn’t think the rush was necessarily because of the weather.

“I don’t know if it’s been busy because of the storm or if people are just jonesing to get their trees,” Post said.

The Wicker Park resident, who’s worked at Christy Webber Farm for more than a decade, said people have been especially eager for the holidays this year.

“Everyone wants a tree … (and) they want bigger and bigger trees,” Post said. “I think they just want joy now. People just want to find, maybe, some old-fashioned comfort from the season.”

John Tuttle has been running the tree sale at St. Matthias School in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Chicago for 17 years, Nov. 28, 2025. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune)

Post welcomed the business before the storm sets in but as far as preparing the lot for the spurt of snow, she said they’ll wait to see what the weekend brings. If conditions are cold and wet, they might tarp their trees but if it’s primarily snow, they’ll just shake off the flurries.

At the St. Matthias lot, John Tuttle said with potential customers too busy watching the Bears game, business could slow down. But not on a snow day with nothing else going on.

“Actually when it snows, they feel more Christmasy,” Tuttle said. “They feel like they’re out in the woods cutting a tree down.”

But he said he’s used tarps for precautionary measures over the years. Without it, he said, “we learned the hard way,” one year, having to dig out the trees. He also warned how trees could get frozen together depending on the temperature.

“One year we had, somebody came through with a snowblower and thought they were helping us and blew the snow on all the trees,” Tuttle recalled.

Over the weekend, he said, he or other workers plan to shovel or get one of their friends to bring in a snowplow, if necessary. Tuttle also has a fire pit to try to keep warm when temperatures drop.

 

https://www.chicagotribune.com/2025/11/28/christmas-tree-lots-chicago-snow-weather/