4-8 inches of snow to come

Wear warm clothing, avoid sudden braking and, above all, do not panic.

Things to remember how the city is re-familiarize snow Thursday - perhaps more than eight inches and just in time to haunt them at night.

"It will be a shock to the system," said National Weather Service meteorologist Ed Fenelon. "We had the typical time in November or March. Now it will be a lot of time in January."

The snow will start to hit more like a boring Thursday morning. The big blow came in the afternoon through evening, said Fenelon. Mother Nature is expected to launch wind gusts reached 35 mph during the evening hours.

The snow should taper off Thursday night, but the cold will remain throughout the weekend, the forecast said, with temperatures around almost single digits.

If you are dreading the snow, remember, by this time of the season, the city has seen usually about 13 inches of snow. Through Tuesday, we had only 1.9 cm in the Chicago area, said Fenelon. Until Thursday, it was set to one of the least snowy seasons in history, said Fenelon.