Chicagoans deal with a jarring April temperature pullback Tuesday. After logging the area’s fourth 70°+ temp of the month in all but lakefront areas Monday—including 76° at O’Hare and 79° at Midway—readings dive more than 20° Tuesday. The month’s 70s have been occurring at a torrid pace—three times the long-term average since 1871. It’s one reason that despite Tuesday’s chill, April’s opening days have run 10° warmer than the same period a year ago and 9.1° above normal! Were this temp trend to continue the remainder of the month—a development not especially likely, but not completely impossible either—April, 2005 would finish the mildest on record.
Heavy rains were slow to advance on the city Monday thanks to some of the lowest early April relative humidity levels observed here this time of year in decades. Monday morning’s 25% reading at 8 a.m. was the lowest observed here during an April morning since 1971.
WGN-TV Chief Meteorologist Tom Skilling and the WGN Weather Center staff provide daily coverage of weather in the Chicago area.
