June 2005 Archives

Brown lawns and shriveling leaves don’t lie. Weeks of hot, dry weather have taken their toll. And, while the year’s most impressive heat wave is history for the moment, June, 2005 enters the record book as the city’s second hottest and second driest June at Midway Airport in 77 years of continuous observations. The month averaged 6° above normal, a temperature level which suggests two and a half times the normal level of air conditioning in June.
For eight consecutive muggy days, highs surged above 90° at O’Hare—a June hot spell surpassed only by the 11 consecutive 90s recorded during the month in 1954.
Despite the recent heat and humidity, heavy thunderstorm rains Thursday were comparatively selective. Though 1.90" fell at Morris and 1.08" at Rockford, north suburban Lake Villa completed its 25 straight day without measurable rain Thursday.

Imagine working indoors at your computer and realizing you’ve somehow been struck by lightning. That’s what happened to Jeff Johnson in Des Moines, Iowa around 10:30 a.m. Wednesday morning. But, what makes the story especially intriguing is the fact that Johnson is the Warning Coordination Meteorologist at the National Weather Service Forecast Office there. He had been monitoring developing storms on the office’s radar console when a lightning strike outside the building apparently traveled indoors through electrical cables. Once inside, it made contact with Johnson and damaged the office’s Doppler radar and communications equipment employed in gathering storm spotter reports. Johnson was rushed to a local hospital but released in good condition later in the day. Incidents like this underscore the danger lightning can represent even when you’re indoors.

As I pointed out in the piece we produced for today's Chicago Tribune and this blog, the primary short-term risk for severe weather into tonight--and it's fairly substantial--is for sections of Iowa, Minnesota and western Wisconsin--in other words, to Chicago's west. A tornado watch has already been posted for eastern South Dakota, northwest Iowa and western Minnesota through 6PM--and additional watches are likely to become necessary later Wednesday and Wednesday night.

Isolated active thunderstorms continue to flare in sections of the Chicago metro in advance of the better organized, western Midwest storms. It's been happening with some regularity since late Wednesday morning southwest of the city. Parts of Ford and Iroquois Counties were even placed under a severe t-storm warning earlier this afternoon. A caller to our office reported downpours late Wednesday morning southwest of Kankakee. Several more storms--but of limited areal coverage-- are likely to flare on the inland-moving lake breeze this afternoon. The overall rain coverage with these storms is likely to remain limited to 15-30% of the area. Some concentrated downpours may accompany the heaviest among them--but over extremely limited sections of the area, suggesting these rains hardly amount to drought busters.

Should the Iowa/Minnesota/western Wisconsin severe weather survive once crossing the Mississippi, better organized clusters of active storms may hit closer to home over portions of the Chicago metro area late tonight and the first half of Thursday. These could prompt severe weather watches/warnings where they occur. It's worth noting that any storms coming out of Iowa later tonight in addition to any that might form with a cold front's approach here Thursday morning through midday, aren't yet certainties. The ground in this area in exceptionally dry thanks to the ongoing drought. I can't tell you the number of t-storms I've watched "dry up" or at least shrink in intensity and areal coverage, once they've encountered regions of dry soil in the past. This entire situation will be monitored as this weather situation continues to unfold and we'll post updates if needed.

The good news out of this: cooler, drier weather follows Friday and Saturday before heat and a return to higher humdity take center stage here meteorologically later Sunday and on Monday (July 4) .

We'll work update this blog as the situation warrants.

- Tom Skilling

June’s been a warm month. The month is running 6° above normal and 6.9° warmer than a year ago. But, the distribution of the area’s most intense daytime heat hasn’t been uniform. The impact of Lake Michigan and variations in Chicago’s urban environment has helped produce a huge spread in the total number of 90° days at the city’s various weather observation sites. Midway Airport, with its heat retaining highly urban surroundings, leads the pack with 12 while O’Hare has just 7 on the books. But, Northerly Island’s tally of just four 90s underscores the impact of cooling lake breezes. Average June, 2005 temperatures are also illustrative. Midway’s 75.8° exceeds O’Hare’s 73.6° and Northerly Island’s 71.4°.
Wednesday’s SE winds do little to reduce humidity levels. The flow should limit lakeshore highs to 78-84°. Low 90s are likely several miles inland. A final day of 90s is due Thursday.
-Tom Skilling

For ten stifling hours Monday, temperatures exceeded 90° at Midway Airport. It’s only the second time since the current hot spell began last Thursday that readings have surged above 90° for such an extended period in a single day. The 96° peak reading at Midway and 95° at O’Hare marked the fifth consecutive day a 90° or higher temperature has occurred in the city. The readings bring this year’s 90° tally to to eleven at Midway—as many as all the 90s recorded in the past three Junes combined. It’s also more than all the 90s which have occurred to date this month in the perenially hot Southern cities of Birmingham, Atlanta, Tampa and Miami put together.
The use of air conditioners has skyrocketed. In this month alone, usage is estimated at more than twice (220%) last year’s rate and is running at double the normal pace.
June rainfall is just 25% the total here a year ago.

Late Sunday afternoon, thunderstorms suddenly developed in portions of Will, DuPage, Kane, Cook, McHenry and Lake counties as an easterly lake breeze off Lake Michigan collided with moist southerly inland winds and a weak warm front over northeast Illinois. National Weather Service radar indicated some moderate rainfall in a few spots, but for the most part just thunder and brief light rain were observed. Severe thunderstorm warnings were issued, and a power outage occurred in the Naperville area.
The Illinois EPA issued an Air Pollution Action Day alert for Chicago today. It appears that the heat will continue into Thursday, which could make the last seven days in June the second-hottest June 24-30 on record at Chicago.
This is the season of infrequent frontal passages and a reliance on spotty thunderstorms for most rainfall—a bad omen as all indicators point toward the present moderate to severe drought over northern Illinois intensifying.

Light east winds may provide some relief from the heat along the Lake Michigan shoreline Sunday, while inland another hot humid day is expected. If readings reach 90° at Midway and O’Hare today, it will mark four straight days with 90° or higher at both sites and raise the total number of 90° days this June to five at O’Hare and ten at Midway. With a southerly flow forecast to continue into mid-week, June 2005 may well end on a string of eight consecutive 90° days—an event that has never occurred at either Midway or O’Hare. Midway holds the end-of-June record set back in 1931 when each of the last 7 days of June that year hit 90°.
Hot and humid conditions will continue the next few days, but any showers will be few and far between. Even the passage of a cold front Thursday may trigger another opportunity for rain, but the nature of showers/thunderstorms being mostly brief and “hit or miss” will have a negligible effect on the strengthening drought.

Heat has hit early and comparatively hard this year, a development which has often signaled enhanced prospects for more than the usual number of 90° days. Eight comparably hot years since 1928 have gone on to produce an average of 39 days of 90s—far more than the typical 24 which normally occur in the city.
While O’Hare Airport’s 96° high Friday missed the record by only a degree, the 98° high at Midway Airport brings to eight the number of 90s on the books in 2005. Friday’s scorcher was the hottest weather Chicagoans have experienced in three years. Only 176 days over the past 77 years have been as hot or hotter.
The area’s hottest readings on Friday included 98° at Wheeling, 99° at Kankakee and 100° at Remington, Ind.
The string of 90° highs predicted each day through Thursday would make this the first time since 1931 that the final week of June has produced 90s each day.

The Chicago area, already struggling with one of the worst early season dry spells since the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s, was hit with seven hours of 90°-plus temperatures Thursday. O’Hare Airport’s 93° high at 2:46 p.m. was the city’s hottest in two years.
The heat intensifies Friday, and the record high of 97° in 1988 may be on the line. That reading is a far cry from the cool 70° recorded a year ago. Of 28,065 daily high temperatures on the books at Midway Airport since observations began at the site in 1928, only 249 have been 97° or higher.
Violent storms swept northern Minnesota at the periphery of the blazing heat Thursday. Radar scans put cloud tops at 55,000 feet as 70 m.p.h. thunderstorm wind gusts hit Zimmerman, Minn. Large trees were downed in 66 m.p.h. storm gusts in St. Paul.

Temperatures surge to the mid 90s Friday afternoon—the hottest of 2005 and potentially the highest reading here since Aug. 25, 2003. It’s the type of hot summer weather which completely bypassed the area and much of the eastern two-thirds of the U.S. last year. Daytime readings in the mid 90s (or higher) are rare here. Of the 1,827 daytime 90° and higher temperatures logged since records began at Midway Airport in 1928, only 19 percent (or 352 of them) have reached or exceeded 96°. If cloud development Friday remains limited, a few locations may register readings within striking distance of 100°. That’s something which hasn’t occurred at the city’s official observation sites in nearly six years—since 101° at O’Hare and 104° at Midway on July 30, 1999.
Intense heat gripped the Plains Wednesday, including a record-breaking 99° high at Billings, Mont. Other highs included 98° at Storm Lake, Iowa, 99° at Buffalo, S.D. and 101° at Imperial, Neb.

Temperatures reached 90° at Midway Airport Tuesday for the sixth time this year. That’s hardly a record—but it is ahead of the typical pace of four 90s which have occurred by now since 1928. The 2005 tally pales in comparison to the 15 which had been logged through June 22 during the infamously hot year of 1988—a year which was to wind up with 48 readings 90° or higher at Midway and the 47 at O’Hare, the area’s all-time record. Only one 90°+ had occurred here by this time a year ago.
A windshift to the northeast which accompanied Tuesday’s late day cold frontal passage has set the stage for Wednesday’s more comfortable weather.
Stifling heat, the hottest at a number of locations in nearly two years, baked the Southwest Tuesday. Readings hit 117° at Needles, Calif., 116° at Gila Bend and 114° at Phoenix—both in Arizona.
-Tom Skilling

One of summer’s attractions is its long days. A six month lengthening cycle culminates in more than 15 hours of daylight Tuesday as Summer, 2005 officially gets underway. The new season began at 1:46 a.m.
Sunlight Tuesday is visible more than six additional hours and is nearly five times stronger than it was just six months ago when winter began.
Monday was the first day to host 100% of this area’s possible daytime sunshine since May 4.
Some “debris” clouds, remnants of once powerful thunderstorms, decorate Chicago area skies Tuesday as a cold front approaches. The front passes early this afternoon, producing a windshift to the NE. That sends shoreline temperatures lower later today. A thunderstorm may develop in spots.
Violent storms pounded Minnesota, NW Wisconsin and Iowa Monday. Gusts of 72 m.p.h. swept Mankato while 1.80” rains flooded Amboy, Minnesota.

The city’s recent cool spell is about to end. After several days with area highs in the 60s and 70s, air conditioners are about to get an extended workout as readings should return to the 80s today, and after flirting with the 90º mark on Tuesday and Thursday, surge into the middle 90s on Friday. A brief period of east winds may temper the heat next weekend, but more hot weather looms on the horizon for July’s opening days.
While there is a potential for some thunderstorm activity later this week, current prospects are not favorable for much-needed widespread soaking rainfall. This area is now classified as being in a moderate drought, with conditions worsening with each passing dry day.
Dry conditions in North Africa are also causing problems for hurricane forecasters. Huge clouds of dust moving west across the Atlantic Ocean have made it difficult to discern clouds associated with a tropical wave moving through the Lesser Antilles.

Chicago’s moisture deficits will continue to grow in the upcoming week as summer’s heat begins to reestablish itself across the Midwest. With the year’s strongest sun baking the already parched soils, temperatures should once again break the 90º hot weather benchmark on Tuesday and except for a brief lake influenced downturn Wednesday, are forecast to reach the 90s away from the lakeshore on a daily basis for the rest of the week. It looks like a hot start for the city’s 25th annual Taste of Chicago with high temperatures expected to soar into the lower and middle 90s—even at the lakefront—by Friday.
Precipitation in Chicago has been below normal throughout this growing season and with minimal rain prospects in the week ahead, coupled with the year’s highest soil moisture evaporation rates, area lawns, gardens, trees and shrubs will become progressively stressed without supplemental watering.

This weekend’s warmth is to be modest by mid-June standards. But, there’s nothing modest about the intensity of sunlight this time of year. The sun’s rays peak in June and July, cautions dermatologist Dr. Bryan Schultz, even when air temperatures are cooler than normal. That makes sunscreen a must if you’re going to be outside for any period of time.
Friday’s 70° high was one of the five coolest June 17 readings on the books here over the past 30 years. The day’s average temperature finished below normal—only the third time that’s happened this month. Highs on Sunday will reach the 80s for the first time since Tuesday.
Severe weather Friday was limited to the Gulf Coast and Montana. Twisters were reported in Louisiana and Montana. Thunderstorm gusts reached 86 m.p.h. at Liberty, Mont.

The video still above comes courtesy of Scott Martin, who captured dramatic footage of a rain shaft near Dalhart, Texas (north of Amarillo) during a storm chase. The rain he encountered was accompanied by pea-sized hail. Thanks Scott for the amazing photo!

With the weather map dominated by a sprawling high pressure system with origins in Hudson Bay, Chicagoans can look forward to a sunny and rain-free weekend. Brisk north and northeast winds running down the full length of Lake Michigan will keep Friday’s temperatures a tad below Thursday’s highs in the upper 70s, but readings will climb steady reaching the middle 80s Sunday, though persistent lake breezes will hold shoreline temperatures in the 70s. While those planning outdoor Father’s Day activities are delighted by the promise of dry weather, area soils are begging for moisture as precipitation deficits mount.
Hot and humid weather was displaced into the Deep South Thursday with record tying highs at New Orleans (98º) and Miami (94º). Severe weather also erupted in the hot and humid air with most of the days nearly 125 reports of large hail and strong winds occurring in areas from Louisiana to western Kansas.

Uninterrupted sunshine returns Thursday along with comfortable, late May-level temperatures. The dramatic turnaround in our weather has silenced most area air conditioners. Only a week ago, highs here flirted with 90°. Wednesday’s peak afternoon reading of 70° was 20° cooler and the lowest daytime high here since May 28—nearly three weeks ago. The month has produced temperature surpluses each day and has generated the longest string of consecutive above-normal days of any June since 1919, when 26 above normal days occurred back to back.
A cool day this time of year isn’t a novelty in Chicago or the Midwest. Each June since 1981 has observed at least one daytime high below 70°.
Nighttime lows dip to the low 50s away from Lake Michigan Thursday night and to the low and mid 40s across the North Woods regions of Wisconsin and Michigan.

For the first time in two weeks, Canada is the source of Chicago’s weather on Wednesday. It’s a change which has been driven by a sharp realignment in steering winds aloft. It brings to an end one of the most prolific sets of early season 80° days on record here. Only two other years in more than a century of weather records (1973, 1984) have the opening two weeks of June hosted 12 days with 80s. The month’s opening 14 days are running 8.4° above normal, enough to rank it among the top ten warmest Junes on the books here.
Nine days this month have already exceeded 85-degrees, a tally which wasn’t reached until August 2 last summer.
Summer’s official open is only seven days away. The new season arrives at 1:46 a.m. next Tuesday, June 21 at the point the sun’s most direct rays fall as far north of the equator as at any time of the year.

My colleague here at WGN-TV Craig Nowack, captured this fascinating shot during a family visit to the Mississippi River on Saturday, June 11. In it, a towering cumulus cloud interacts with the setting sun and casts a shadow on the high and mid-level clouds in the foreground.

- Tom Skilling

Downpours drenched Chica-go’s Indiana suburbs and sections of central Illinois Monday. The rainfall came in the wake of 1-3” rains in sections of downstate Indiana this past weekend as Tropical Storm Arlene’s remnants passed. But, the weather story was all too familiar in the city and much of the remainder of the metro area. Brief showers teased some sections, but when all was said and done, O’Hare had tallied just 0.02” Monday and only a few drops fell at Midway Airport. The potential for some overnight t-storms continued as Monday closed, but wide-coverage rainfall appeared unlikely.
Downed trees and powerlines littered sections of Springfield and Decatur late Monday in the wake of 42,000 ft. tall t-storms.
A reconnaissance aircraft heads to the Caribbean Tuesday to investigate a low pressure moving over mid 80° waters and into an area of limited wind shear—conditions favorable for tropical development.

The remnants of Arlene are slowly breaking up over Indiana today, but cloud cover and rain associated with the dissipating low pressure center still persist. Rain is expected to fall primarily over the Hoosier State today, but the Chicago metro area hovers on the western fringe and could be the recipient of needed precipitation. The U.S. Drought Monitor has categorized northeast Illinois in the early stages of drought.
Arlene storm-total rainfall was over 5 inches at Fort Myers and Naples, Fla., and 3 to 5 inches were reported across Alabama and Mississippi.
A significant change in weather should occur Tuesday as a cold front pushes through and winds shift northwest. Under the influence of cool Canadian high pressure, the rest of the week will see highs averaging some 5 to 10 degrees below normal with abundant sunshine and dry conditions. Next weekend the high will shift east, and southerly flow will signal the start of a big warm-up.

The first part of the week will see a continuation of very warm and humid conditions.Periods of cloudiness along with scattered convective showers/t-storms will probably restrict daytime temps from reaching much higher than the mid to upper 80s. The remains of Tropical Storm Arlene will drift north of the Ohio River Monday and give Northern Illinois and Indiana a good chance of rain. Tuesday the primary center of the weather regime responsible for the extended period of heat and humidity will finally drift into the eastern Great Lakes. A midweek shift in the Jet stream aloft, from a southwest to a cooler drier northerly trajectory, will pave the way for a Canadian-source high pressure air mass that will dominate weather over the Great Lakes the latter half of the week. Any dent in the Chicago area 2005 growing season water deficit will have to be accomplished early this week, as it appears cool and dry high pressure the latter half of the week will bring little or no precipitation.

You couldn’t buy rain over most of the area Friday in the muggy, near-90° air mass responsible for a sixth day of abnormal early season heat. But, where the heavens did open, rainfall came amid powerful winds estimated as high as 60-70 m.p.h. at a few locations. The gusts downed trees near Hinsdale at Clarendon Hills and on Chicago’s Northwest Side. Other storms battered northwest Indiana near LaPorte. To the north, a series of waterspouts dipped from powerful t-storms east of Oshkosh over Lake Winnebago. Limited coverage t-storms, some heavy, threaten to re-erupt in the heat of Saturday and Sunday afternoon.
Note: You are welcome to join Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Julia Keller and Tom Skilling for Nature’s Fury, a discussion of severe weather. The session will be held at the Harold Washington Library Center Auditorium at 3 p.m. Sunday. Free tickets are available while they last at www.printersrowbookfair.org

It was difficult enough to find a day warm enough to shed a sweater or jacket last summer—let alone run an air conditioner. Statewide, the season was the 5th coolest since 1895. But across Illinois—and Chicago in particular—the opening days of June 2005 couldn’t be more different. Hot weather has arrived—and early too! At Midway Airport, not only have this month’s first nine days averaged 8° above normal and 6° above last year, but together, they rank 6th warmest of all June 1-10 periods at the South Side site since 1928.
While rainfall here continues sub-par overall, drenching downpours erupted beneath 52,000 ft. high t-storms in the Plains Thursday along with a swarm of more than three dozen twisters. By late evening, 200 reports of severe weather had flooded into NOAA’s Storm Prediction Center. Rains exceeded 2.50” in an hour over parts of Missouri.

Midway airport’s 91° high on Wednesday, the 4th consecutive day of 90°+, tied the seasonal total of four 90° days for all of last year’s chilly summer. Midway’s 77-year normal tallies 24 days of 90°+. O’Hare topped out at 89°, cooled by an afternoon thunderstorm and nearly a quarter inch of rain. These widespread storms of recent days should increase in areal coverage Thursday, when a cold front attempts to break east from the chilly Rockies toward the Midwest, stalling west of Chicago.
However, remnants of the decaying boundary should push into the Chicago area for the best chance of needed rains Thursday and to a lesser extent on Friday.
Heat and humidity retain their grip on the region into next week, but models now present a convincing case for solid cold frontal passage Tuesday with temperature settling back to normal Wednesday.

The mercury touched 92° at O’Hare on Tuesday for the first official 90° reading in Chicago this year. Midway’s 93° was the third consecutive day of 90° or better, while the high for the state was Pontiac’s 97°. A lake breeze kept the lakefront a little cooler, with only 84° reported at Northerly Island. Consecutive model runs get hotter and hotter each day and now forecast no significant relief from the heat and humidity for the next seven days and beyond. If the forecast verifies, it would develop into an unprecedented heat wave so early in the season.
Amidst this heat and humidity is and unstable atmosphere. Thunderstorms in this environment have developed somewhere in the Chicago area the past four afternoons, and this aspect of the forecast should also remain through the period. The best moisture and instability gather Thursday and Friday, and hence best chance for needed rain then.

Midway airport topped out at 91° Monday, with O’Hare reaching 89°, both the highest readings of the year thus far. The developing heat now spreads far and wide, from the mid Atlantic to the Rockies. Temperatures in the 90’s in Chicago during the first 10 days of June are not that unusual, occurring about half the time (53 percent), but a string of three or more days are unusual this early in the summer.
Some relief will be moving east into the high Plains over the next few days, but warm, humid conditions are expected over northern Illinois right through the weekend. Changes in the upper pattern now project the weak jet stream, the delineator between warm and cool air, will settle well north off Chicago, with an associated cold front sinking only as far south as the Wisconsin line late in the week. This heat and humidity in an unstable environment adds up to a chance for t- storms and much needed rain almost every day, with the best chance on Thursday.

Sunday saw temperatures creep higher around Chicago, peaking at 90° at Midway Airport—the first such reading of the year. Although O’Hare Airport topped out at 87° for Chicago’s official high temperature, it was also its warmest of the year. Hotter temps included 94° at Champaign and 95° at Goshen, Ind. Chicago also escaped a second day of severe weather, as most occurred south or east of the city—including reports of two tornadoes.
Cooler, less humid air sweeps in Monday as west winds trail the exiting heat and humidity to the east. After two warm but less humid days, this front inches back northward and stalls over the Chicago area from Wednesday into the weekend. This system will act as a focus for upcoming thunderstorms, possible from Wednesday through Saturday, with the best chance of needed rain late in that period.

The recent chilly grip of the lake breeze loosened its hold on Chicago on Friday, replaced by south winds, higher temps and humidity, and a good chance of t-storms over the weekend. The last time a weekend was this warm: July 31-Aug. 1 of last year.
The southerly flow responsible for the pattern change is well established not far to our west, where southerly winds at all levels of the atmosphere should drift east from the Plains. Once this warm pattern takes over, it will be difficult to dislodge, though a break in the warmth is expected midweek with a weak cold front and winds off the lake.
Dynamics look good for needed rainfall, but moisture is lacking as inflow from the Gulf has to traverse dry ground to our south and west. As a result, rainfall should be less than the models forecast—a scenario Chicago has been caught in since March.

The steady diet of winds off the still chilly lake is in its final day. By Saturday, winds increase from the south, strong enough to overcome any lingering lake effect. Along with temperatures in the 80’s both Saturday and Sunday, the gush of warm air brings summer-like humidity, with dew points bumping up toward a sticky 70° both days.
Thunderstorms enter the picture late Saturday, Sunday, and into Monday with a cold front that takes nearly 48 hours to inch through the region. The best chance for rain will be Sunday afternoon, but models have been over-generous with forecast amounts for several weeks now, and these storms have weakened rapidly as they attempted to surge east from Nebraska in recent days. Thereafter, weak cold fronts push through the area at regular intervals with little temperature contrast and dynamics too weak for substantive rainfall.

Significantly higher temperatures lie ahead, and that’s hopeful news for area residents anxious for summer warmth after a May that averaged 1.6º below normal.
Computer models are in general agreement that a major weather pattern change is in the works. For Chicago and the Midwest, it means a gradual transition from a regime of near or below normal temperatures to one of temperature surpluses.
To date, Chicago has logged only five days with temperatures in the 80s, but that number is likely to double within only the span of the next week. It will come as no surprise to residents within a mile or two of Lake Michigan that they will feel an abridged version of the warming.
Frequent afternoon breezes off the still-chilly lake waters will restrict lakeside temperatures.