Hoosier

That 94 at RFD actually broke the daily record from 1934. I remember RC saying a while back that RFD seemed to be running warm, but I haven't been following it much. On that subject, looks like a high of 89 at LAF and 80 or 81 at IND. Edit: got to 90 at LAF and 82 at IND.

I don't see much to stop ORD from heading to the mid 90s this weekend. The airmass aloft gets a bit warmer and it's currently near 90 even with easterly flow coming from the lake. ORD seems far enough inland to escape virtually all of the cooling effects.

I think the role of variants shouldn't be ignored though. If you had covid a year ago and you're in an area/country that has a high level of variant spread, then maybe it changes the calculation a bit. For example, I wouldn't feel that comfortable traveling to India unvaccinated, even if I already had covid.

The lake at work

Year-to-date, 2021 has taken over as the 2nd driest on record for Chicago. Lowest precip totals from 1/1 through 6/8: 1934: 4.64" 2021: 6.96" 1989: 7.38" 1992: 7.56" 1928: 8.08" 1968: 8.09" 1895: 8.13" 1994: 8.21" 1988: 8.59" 1925: 8.68" Year-to-date, ORD is just under 45% of average precip (deficits are actually worse just north of there). It is impressive to have that kind of percentage of average precip over a time span of 5+ months. Much easier to pull off if it's just a couple months. Obviously a lot of this dry stretch has occurred in cooler months of the year, which has mitigated the overall impacts so far. But we are in June now and this could really become a bigger problem if it keeps up. There's a cooldown lurking in the extended, but it's still a June sun angle and summer evaporation rates are much greater than other times of year.

At least I may get to flood the drought thread with posts.

Is there a plan B in the unfortunate event that the world runs out of greek alphabet names to use?

ORD picked up 0.01" a little while ago. Good thing it didn't happen yesterday.

Up to 90 at ORD... an overachiever after underachieving yesterday.

This would be pretty good viewing for the eclipse in much of the sub.

May need a 1 county heat headline for the LAF area at some point this summer.

Looks like some pleasant weather for Alek with a series of cooler by the lake days.

The opening week of June was the 5th warmest on record for Chicago, and the warmest since 1971.

Chicago received no measurable precipitation between June 1-7 (yeah, technically it's still the 7th for a little while, but it ain't gonna rain). It is only the 9th time that Chicago has not received at least 0.01" in the first 7 days of June, which makes it close to a 1 in 17 year occurrence on average over the period of record, though it has started happening more often in the past several decades. The other 8 years without measurable precip in the first week of June are 1873, 1922, 1929, 1976, 1988, 1994, 2006, 2017. Sometimes there is some luck involved -- for example, the unofficial site of Midway Airport had 0.01" between June 1-7. So if we broaden it out to less than 0.10" in the first 7 days of June, that has happened 26 times.

Stay tuned for more exciting Chicago futility news. Will have it up in a bit...

What an awful boring stretch it has been. Mercy.

It's Spring 2021. Assume everything will bust until proven otherwise.

Officially a T at ORD so far and 0.01" at Midway.

In other words, request rejected?

Yeah, the blues are only 500 miles away.

Yearly precip deficit at ORD has reached a new high this year... -8.54"

The dreaded 89'ing at ORD

We may need a shirtless pic of Jonger to gauge his progress. Haven't seen one in a while.

Currently 87 at LAF and 77 in Crawfordsville.

Upcoming regime looks a little hit or miss. Some areas could do well while others not so much. Better take advantage of this week because the pattern looks drier after that.