CHICAGO (March 5, 2013)--Chicago residents were expecting to be digging out later Tuesday from as much as 10 inches of snow.

Forecasters call for 8 to 10 inches throughout northeastern Illinois and northwestern Indiana.

That’s a far cry from a year ago, when March brought less than a half-inch of snow to the region.

It was the warmest March on record in Illinois.

The system moved Monday across the Dakotas and Minnesota, dropping up to a foot of snow in some areas and freezing rain in others.

Emergency officials in a number of states were urging commuters to stay off the roads today and take public transportation to work.

In Wisconsin, where as much as a foot of snow is in the forecast, emergency managers urged residents to put winter survival kits in their vehicles.

A wet snow pelted commuters as they slid along the slick streets of downtown Chicago Tuesday morning.

Forecasters said as much as 1.5 inches of snow could fall per hour.

The Illinois Department of Transportation had hundreds of trucks ready to plow roadways in northeastern Illinois.