Hoosier

Darn, was hoping to bait you into starting a thread. Maybe it'll happen yet.

9 days until the sunrise eclipse. Hopefully you saved your eclipse glasses from 2017, but if you didn't and are interested in a convenient viewing method, they can be found for a relatively cheap price iirc. In parts of Canada, this will be an annular solar eclipse -- where the moon blocks off all but a narrow ring of the sun all the way around. It is a partial eclipse in the US and other parts of Canada, but I would almost call it a super partial in areas like Sault Ste Marie and Toronto since a very large amount of the sun will be covered. In general, this eclipse will look more impressive the farther north and east you are in the subforum (as long as the weather cooperates, of course). Here is a snapshot of what things will look like at sunrise. If you're left of the middle line, there will be less and less eclipse to view after sunrise. If you're right of the middle line, the maximum eclipse will happen after sunrise. Here's an interactive website where you can find exact details/times for your town. For Chicago, the window is from approximately 5:15 (sunrise) to 5:39. http://xjubier.free.fr/en/site_pages/solar_eclipses/ASE_2021_GoogleMapFull.html

Driest Januarys-Mays for Chicago: 1934: 4.56" 1989: 6.22" 1958: 6.54" 2021: 6.95" 1992: 7.44" 1928: 7.73" 1895: 7.92" 1968: 8.07" 1994: 8.20" 1925: 8.55"

I took a look at Chicago. I just used years that had less than 10" of precip through May (avg through May is a bit over 13") because setting the threshold less than that would've really cut into the sample size. The results surprised me... there were some notoriously hot summers in there, but many others were near average or cooler than average.

Biggest unanswered question has to be whether this upcoming stretch of heat will warrant a thread started by Chi Storm. For pre-solstice (so prior to climo warmest time of year), it could be a relatively impressive stretch. I mean, the last time there was a streak of 5+ days of 90s in Chicago prior to the summer solstice was in 1994 (which was 6 days long). I'm just sayin.

Part of that area has been pretty dry (for instance, it is the 3rd driest meteorological Spring on record for Chicago) which could enhance the heat a little more in some areas. That heat will also accelerate the dry out.

Euro has mid 90s in Chicago next Monday through the end of the run.

Wouldn't be easy to pull off colder than average over a 3 month period... if we presuppose that the drought will continue. I should look up the last time Chicago had a cooler than average summer while in a bona fide drought.

After being in positive territory, the last few days pushed the month into negative territory at ORD. It looks like the month will finish fractions of a degree cooler than average.

For anyone who doesn't know how big that place is, 140,000 is less than half capacity. I'd have to think it is one of the biggest mass gatherings in the world during the covid era.

Yeah summer of 1993 was wet for Chicago, particularly June which had about 10" of rain. The sub 1" streak began on 9/26/1993 and went through 6/22/1994 for a total of 270 days.

With the sub 0.50" precip streak ending at ORD, might as well turn to another one. Today is 220 days since the last calendar day 1" precip. This only ranks in 30th place right now (#1 is an amazing 416 days), but it is the longest such streak for Chicago since 1993-1994 and there is no end in the near future.

I feel like Jonger is at least partly going off of experiences of people he knows. It's good that he doesn't know anybody who has gotten seriously ill. A lot of people do know someone who has gotten seriously ill or died. It would be nice to get the mortality rate to flu levels. Maybe it will happen in the coming years, but at this point it's just not the same.

You have your anecdotes and I have mine. The good thing is that we have data, and it shows that there have been many hundreds of thousands of covid deaths in the US in just over 1 year of time. Real covid deaths, not a ton of inappropriately classified deaths. Who knows how many are dealing with longer term symptoms. It is wrong to compare it to the flu. It is worse for just about every age group except young children.

I know the P.1 variant (Brazil) has shown more of an ability to reinfect people who previously had covid. That variant has not really taken off in a big way in the US so far though. Personally I don't think "I already had covid" is a solid reason to never get the vaccine, but for people who had covid, maybe delaying it is warranted. As far as overweight people, I think we have to separate this out. If you're massively obese (I'm talking like 300-400 pounds), there's not much of an excuse for that. I don't care if you're poor and only have access to crappy quality food. You're not going to get to that level unless you're frequently in a huge calorie surplus. A lot more people are moderately overweight, and for some of them, it's not so easy to drop the pounds for various reasons.

Could be, though the definition of backlog has some subjectivity. I think we'd all agree that anybody who died 3 or 4 months ago and is reported now is a backlog, but what about 1 month ago?

Sounds like the Pfizer vaccine is somewhat less effective (though still offering good protection) against the variant out of India. Quite possibly also the case for Moderna since that vax is similar.

Good combo when rooting for drought

A stretch of 80s/90s starting later next week along with minimal rain should speed up the dry out in the existing drought area.

If things work out, could put together some 90 degree days locally starting next weekend. In any case, looks very summer-like even if some days come up short.

Just a little info from an outsider... We are 7 weeks past the end of our statewide mask mandate in Indiana, and there is still a lot of mask wearing at indoor places around here regardless of whether the business is requiring it or not. There are more and more people not wearing one, but it's a very slow process at least around here. We are still near 5% positivity rate statewide, so I'm not sure if that is factoring in, but honestly I'm not sure how much the average person follows the positivity rate on a frequent basis. I'm not fully vaxxed yet... and I figure I've come this far, so I'll wear one a while longer. Once I'm fully vaxxed, off it goes, wherever I have a choice in the matter.

I noticed that on a population basis, we are still running at a higher hospitalization level in IN than the country as a whole. If our rate translated across the country, it would be the equivalent of ~36k people in the hospital.

This "I have an immune system" argument seems like a common one from people against the covid vaccine. It's like yeah, obviously you do have an immune system, but what if it's not as great as you think it is?

Do you think we can get the average under 5k at some point this summer or is that too optimistic with a chunk of people not getting vaccinated and so much of a return to pre-pandemic behaviors/travel/mobility?

ORD had exactly 0.50" of rain today. Good thing that sub 0.50" streak ended the other day.