The bitter cold that gripped the region Sunday and Monday should be on its way out by Tuesday, leading the way for more ice and snow.

A wind chill advisory issued by the National Weather Service remains in effect until noon today for Lake, Porter, Newton, Jasper and Benton counties in Indiana and Cook and Will counties in Illinois. While the strong winds the whipped through the region Sunday have subsided, forecasters predicted wind chills could still dip to -28 this morning.

Tuesday should bring some relief in the form of temperatures in the mid-20s, but it will also bring more ice and snow.

The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm watch for Lake, Porter, Newton, Jasper and Benton counties in Indiana and Cook and Will county in Illinois from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday afternoon. Communities north of Hebron in Indiana and Odell in Illinois (just southwest of Kankakee) are expected to get snow while areas to the south will likely get a mix of freezing rain, sleet and snow.

Forecasters said Monday it was too early to tell how much snow might fall, but the alert issued by the National Weather Service said "significant amounts" of snow are expected. A quarter of an inch of ice could also be on untreated surfaces by Wednesday morning.

The region was still recovering Monday morning from the winds that whipped through late Saturday and Sunday, downing power lines already heavy with ice from the freezing rains of Thursday and Friday. As of 8 a.m., NIPSCO reported some 4,000 customers were still without power, with the Crown Point area being the hardest hit with 2,100 customers in the dark. Other areas experiencing outages were Gary, with 1,200 customers without power, Valparaiso, LaPorte, Monticello, Plymouth and Goshen.

The outages showed significant improvement over Sunday night, when 19,600 customers were without power in the NIPSCO service area. NIPSCO spokesmen said additional crews were working round the clock to restore power to customers.