Rate the climate: Chicago (Houston, Phoenix, snow, hot)
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A comparison of two station in Chicago during the July 1936 heatwave. UofC was the official station located a mile or two from the lake. Midway is nearly 10 miles inland (ORD did not exist)
Many times the "official" numbers don't tell the whole story
Even though his sunshine recorder clicked off 77 percent of possible sunshine Tuesday, Chicago’s veteran weather observer Frank Wachowski calculated our June 2015 total sunshine to be only 46 percent of possible, making this the cloudiest June since sunshine records were first measured back in 1893! The previous record low June sunshine was 48 percent of possible set 73 years ago in 1942 – the average for June is 65 percent of normal.
Going hand in hand with the very cloudy conditions, rainfall for June was also exceptionally high. Chicago’s official site at O’Hare International Airport was 7.12-inches – 9th rainiest in 144 years (Chicago rainfall records date back to 1871). The 8.36-inches at Midway was the 5th rainiest at that site (records there go back to 1928).
The first 5 days in July look to be on the cool side – high temperatures averaging 8-degrees below the normal daily 84-degree highs – with easterly breezes off the cool waters of Lake Michigan enhancing the effects of persistent Canadian-source high pressure forecast to reside over our area
Those same Fronts came East too. Giving similar weather. Last couple weeks even same pattern of severe thunderstorms, every day. and even some cooler but damp days. With periods of sun with humidity to fire up the thunderstorms and tornado warnings.
Weather extremes are normal for Chicago. But Wednesday, July 12, 1995, was odd: the third day of an intensifying heat wave reached 97 degrees and, as darkness fell, didn’t cool down. At 10 p.m. the combined heat and humidity made it feel as if the air temperature were 100 degrees. “It’s pretty amazing,” TV weatherman Jerry Taft told viewers.
On Thursday the thermometer hit 106, but meteorologists’ measure of how hot it felt to humans — that is, the so-called heat index, driven by extraordinarily high humidity — climbed to 126 degrees
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