I finally got a chance to go up this past saturday. This time I flew as a safety pilot for Ray. The weather was a bit screwey. It was cloudless and sunny with great visability, but the forecast, which was just updated within the last 30 mins, called for snow, overcast at 1000 ft, and visibility down to about 1 mile. It didn't look like there was anything on the horizon, either.
So Ray decided that we would just shoot a couple of approaches at Aurora so that we could see anything closing in. This would allow us to zip back to Naper if anything happened. As we are getting ready to leave, we hear some radio transmission of people wondering how the conditions are at certain local airports. Someone says that Midway was reporting a broken layer at 300 ft (!) and visibilities in the 1/4 mile range with snow showers.
This makes us a little nervous, but we decide to take a look-see. We get up and turn to the south to setup for the Aurora GPS 33 approach. As Ray is flying under the hood, I look to the East and I realize that I can see fine for about 15 miles. At 15 miles, there is a wall of white stuff. It's pretty cool looking, but hard to tell how fast it is moving.
To make a gabby story short, we shoot the approach and decide to head home. There's always another day for flying.