possible tomorrow. and richard m. daley lights his last christmas tree in the plaza as chicago mayor. that's this plaza with his mayor on it. and two of our own were in tow. we'll explain. the problem was not as such as the airport as feared. but in chicago a commuter expressway nightmare. good evening. i'm micah materre. >> and i'm mark suppelsa. our top story on wgn, getting everything in place for the holiday. keeping track on trains, planes, and roadways. >> reporter: what a difference an hour makes. earlier tonight, it would have made more sense to walk.

sky cam 9 had the best view of the parking lot that kennedy turned into this evening. it took some motorists more than two hours to get from o'hare to downtown. traffic on chicago area highways for most of the night best described with one simple word. >> slow. slow. >> reporter: yeah. worth saying twice. >> they're a nightmare. bumper to bumper. >> where are you trying to go to? >> ke are accident r ridge. >> and where are you coming from? >> wisconsin. >> reporter: many travelers leaving for a long holiday weekend out of town. some were just trying to get home from work. >> we left an hour from libertyville. we have a good hour and a half ride at least. >> traffic everywhere. it's pretty backed up. seems like it's not getting better. hopefully it will get better.

>> reporter: traffic was so bad many big rig drivers gave up for the night. >> it's just jam packed. we were moving 4 mile-an-hour. i run out of time so here i sit. i'll wait until morning sometime and take off then. >> reporter: much better luck on the trains tonight though some amtrak customers experienced minor delays. at the airport business as usual. an estimated 189,000 passengers moving through the terminal, there were few delays. security lines didn't back up and there were no protests over the new pat downs. >> what you see right now is about the way it's been all day. things have gone very smoothly. no lines at the ticket counters, security check point lines, traffic is moving smoothly. >> reporter: sunday is expected to be the busier travel day at o'hare. estimated 212,000 passengers moving through the terminal. aaa saying 2.5 million people

are traveling this week. 94% by car. >> thank you. well, other news. if home's where the heart is, did rahm emanuel leave his heart in chicago when he went to washington? three put in bids saying emanuel hasn't lived here two years. he was rooting for the bulls last night in l.a. claims his service as white house chief of staff doesn't disqualify him because he never thought to leave chicago permanently. >> he continued to vote chicago. he still has an illinois driver's license and an illinois car registration. he continually stated over the time that he has been absent that he intends to come back to chicago. >> emanuel is renting his home to a man who is now running

against him. meantime, he lives in a condo on milwaukee avenue. police still searching tonight for the person who killed one of their own this week. david blake off duty monday when he was shot to death in his suv. he was highly decorated and a member of the s.w.a.t. team. today colleagues remembered their friend. >> these few days have seemed to roll into each other. it's heart wrenching for all of us. >> we're a tight nit group. we support each other. we're not a bunch of individuals. we support each other and we're going to support dave. he was a wonderful individual to be around. >> the officer's gun and wallet were found inside his suv. the windows were rolled up when his body was found. anyone with information is asked to call police. the services for officer blake are this weekend and they're private. a man accused of killing his wife is behind bars.

norberto rodriguez. body of his wife irma rodriguez was found in the truck of her car last year. they were going through an angry divorce when she was killed. he lost his police job after allegedly shooting his wife in the hand in 1997. car jacking victims are fighting back. what one couple did to keep their car from being stolen with their baby inside. plus find out what deals are in store for you this black friday. and tom skilling has a preview of your holiday forecast. >> it was ice and traffic accidents earlier to the southwest of us. now powerful thunderstorms are drenching the southern midwest. two inches plus down, more inches on the way. we'll tell you where those hit and a wave off that storm can bring sleet and snow back to chicago later tomorrow afterrain revs up. the full forecast, a big

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they walked away from their car with the keys in the ignition and their 6-month-old baby in the back seat. that's a car jacker who jumps in driving away. but the mother holds on breaking the car window. the father jumped through it kicking the driver in the head causing him to crash. that driver took off running. that family thankfully is okay. homeland security calling an end to the color coded terror alert system. since 9/11, the level has raised or lowered on the government's assessment of the terror threat. the system is too vague, it's

been argued. they want a better system that describes the threats. he was one of the most powerful and feared republican in congress. now tom delay has been found guilty of money laundering in a texas court. delay could face life in prison on the money laundering charge ever charge. the citizens sent a strong message saying politicians have to serve them honestly. president obama pardoning a pair of turkeys today named apple and cider. >> as president of the united states, you are hereby pardoned from the thanksgiving dinner table. >> the presidential turkey tradition dates back to abe lincoln. the

this president we want on to say it felt good to stop one shellacking this november. make sure to join paul konrad and robin baumgarten tomorrow starting at 8:00 in the morning. three, two, one. [ cheering ] >> well, the city's christmas tree is ready for this season as you see. mayor daley along with steve sanders and allison payne lighting that tree in the daly plaza. special for daley considering this is his last lighting as mayor. here's something to get you in the spirit. shopping. >> retailers cooking up deals to get you in their stores black friday. here's what our team found. >> best buy has a 50-inch sew -- 15-inch sony laptop for

$499. sears has a plasma tv with two blue ray movies for about a thousand bucks. that's good. you can see a bunch more deals on our website wgntv.com. coming up: more rain, possibly even flurries this thanksgiving. not much to be thankful for. but we had it good all fall. it could be worse. [ sighs ] ♪ [ inhales deeply ] ♪ ♪ [ female announcer ] lighting a glade scented candle can change your whole day. [ clapping ] oh! [ both chuckle ] thank you. [ female announcer ] release the magic with limited-edition cashmere woods from glade. s.c. johnson. a family company.

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what a going on with this weather? >> it's amazing. it was so cold up today until 5:00 newstime we had the coldest day since march 2. i thought micah materre is never going to settle for that. she wouldn't even get out of bed. that's it. she was going to cancel thanksgiving. >> and 40 people at her house would be stunned by that right now. >> so we figured we had to get to work on that in the weather center. >> thank you. >> just for you, micah. we had ice and traffic accidents in la salle county. down on i-39, the road was closed because of accidents earlier today because of ice. thunderstorms have been rumbling across that same area.

we have a thunderstorm going in kankakee right now. so you talk about your all- purpose storm while it snows in the upper midwest. we've been sitting during these gray murky clouds today. started with ice pellets and a couple of little snow flakes in spots. the temperatures have been going up. and they probably will settle into the low 40s and go back down again tomorrow as cold air rushes into the backside of the storm. it is still windy out there. it's 41 at this hour at waukegan with humidity 100%. there you see the warmer temperatures across the area. these are the rains so far from kenosha so oak lawn. here's minnesota with snow down there. nice snow showers in that

region. here's alexandria, virginia. you see snow coming there there. look at the rain down state in decatur and these rain totals. there has a deluge taking shape and headed for indianapolis and dayton, ohio. all those areas. under flood watches at this point with the strong winds in our area and the big storm right through. this is the second one to roll through the center of the country. the cold air with subzero temperatures plunging into the west. the warm air with 80s and texas today that contrast sets up a behemoth of a jet stream that produces lifting for storms like this. there's the plot of our temperatures. here's what the highs looked like today. look at the south winds and the kind of moisture they can carry on this sort of warmth. 84 at dallas.

8 at billings. unusually warm in our 49th state. there you can see the cold air knifing into this air mass from the west. winds are blowing from the southeast here then turn west and blow with equal vigor out to the west. we'll be in both wind regimes before the 24 hour passes. we're 11 degrees warmer than 24 hours ago. but here's what's on the way. and this thing as it rolls in tomorrow and we get a new area of rain to spread up here after this rain tonight tapers down to sprinkles. that cold air could turn the rain over to ice pellets or snow late tomorrow. 89% humidity. look at the lightning ongoing. as we've pointed out each flash here is realtime cloud to ground lightning. these tower 45,000 feet down state. and the heavier cells are in

your lower suburbs. you can see the visibility reductions in our southern suburbs due to haze and moisture. here's where the lightning is occurring. here's what the rain has looked like so far. this is doppler plotted rainfall since 7:00 this morning. here's what's on the way. here's our local area rainfall. you can see how the southern suburbs have gotten more than we have. our rpm model thins the rains out beyond 10:30. we get patches of light rain to come through. and we'll awaken tomorrow with cloudy skies and sprinkles in the area. but you'll see another batch set up. it turns pink on the backside which means it's mixing with sleet and so forth. look at the weather advisories up north. these are frost and freeze warnings. tornado and flood advisories. pretty active pattern. here's the corridor of 4 inches

of rain that will run from south of st. louis up through indiana and indianapolis and pittsburgh as you see there. a real deluge down south. looks like we turn cold but the most of the precip is out of here on friday. chilly weekend ahead at least to start. warms up after that. we'll have another rain system on monday. if that were to do something fun as cold air comes in, we'll have to watch tuesday for snow. but that's a ways off yet. precip and winds will ease. steady temperatures in the upper 30s, low 40s. cloudy start tomorrow but turns colder in the afternoon and evening. then changing to sleet and snow late in the day from the west. high temperature tomorrow 39 but falling to a low 18 overnight. and maybe a flurry in the

morning on friday with a high of 28. seven-day forecast warms to 37 saturday, still chilly. 44 on sunday and 44 monday when it starts to rain again. then tuesday depending on what that system does, we're on the front edge of new old-- cold air. >> new cold air. >> we'll try to get you some warm there. >> i appreciate that. thank you. coming up after a loss last night the bulls come out slow against phoenix tonight. and doing the best michael vick the past couple weeks. why he found room to run ♪ ♪

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lakers last night phoenix tonight. they have them again this weekend before the bulls finally come home. it is not easy especially against the suns who can really make you look bad once they get their offense going. a lot of bulls fans hopes to see the bulls blot autothe suns. but steve nash owning the baseline. it's 29-8 there. more phoenix. nash up to ward. 23 in the 1st half. rose on the break, missed the layup but noah tips it in. bulls hanging in. now down 12 at half-time. the bears know what they have to do to pick up their win sunday. get their mitts on the eagles slippery quarterback michael vick. the bears are about to find out if they belong in that group. rich king has more. >> reporter: michael vick's fumble on sunday was his first turnover of the season. he has not been picked off.

he presents endless nightmares because of his great mobility. >> he's doing good inside of the pocket and outside of the pocket. we just got to stay in front of him and try to get him down. try to contain him. but they got other weapons as well. they're pretty stacked. they just got to play our game. >> reporter: but jay cutler is showing great mobility in his last three games. rushing more than 91 yards. i asked jay what the difference was. >> we seen a lot more across the board. trying to cover up the crossers. trying to man up with our guys and still keep two safeties. that's going to open up lanes. doing a great job of staying on their guys and getting past me. when you start seeing coverages like that, you've got to check out our first two options.

>> reporter: on paper the bears have a better defense. the eagles have a better offense. the big difference in this game: turnover yaren owe. the eagles lead the nfl. that's why they are favored. rich king, wgn news. and we're headed to the shank tank in a few minutes. the first time the sharks and hawks have hooked up at the tank. he hawks are looking forward to seeing niemi. >> he's a good friend of mine. i was trying to get into his head a little bit at dinner last night. it's going to be fun playing with him tonight. >> do you know where to shoot on him? >> yeah, i do. hopefully you'll see it tonight. >> let's hope he shares the info. >> right. >> we'll see you after the 1st pe.