Official National Weather Service forecasts for Northwest Indiana — seven counties on the Lake Michigan shore, from Gary, Hammond and Whiting east through Portage and Michigan City to the dunes, and south to Valparaiso, Rensselaer and Winamac.
Every Indiana region shares one system — the same maps, the same live radar, the same climate record. The Region gets Chicago's weather half an hour later and Lake Michigan's own on top of it. The lake-effect snow machine points straight at these counties when the wind comes out of the northwest — LaPorte County measures its winters in feet — and the same lake holds the summer heat off the shore while Valparaiso bakes.