[For the latest on the weather in the Midwest, read our Friday updates here.]

CHICAGO — Midwesterners trudged ahead Thursday into a familiar, grim reality: temperatures well below zero, schools and businesses closed, stern warnings to wear extra layers or, better yet, just stay indoors.

The polar vortex that arrived earlier this week has for days disrupted life across an entire region. Deaths and injuries were reported. Decades-old records fell. And, for one more day, even stepping outside remained a painful, risky experience.

But the forecast finally suggested relief ahead. By Thursday night, temperatures across much of the Midwest were expected to poke above zero. By the end of the weekend, meteorologists predicted as much as a 70- or 80-degree swing, with balmy-for-February readings in the 40s or 50s and rain instead of snow.

Still, risks remained. A band of snow complicated travel on Thursday, and in the Northeast, officials warned of their own cold wave, with heavy snow in some places and subzero wind chills in others.