There are preliminary indications Illinois hosted its coldest May temperature ever Tuesday. More than a century of weather records exist in many parts of the state. Until Tuesday morning, the coldest temp ever recorded during the month of May in Illinois was the 21° reading which occurred in 1989 at Elizabeth in far northwest Jo Daviess County, not far from Galena and Dubuque. But early Tuesday, a National Weather Service cooperative observer at Mt. Carroll, Ill.—not far from Elizabeth in Carroll County—reported a 20° low. The reading will be verified by the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C., site of this country’s climatological archive. If it stands, it becomes the coldest temp ever recorded anywhere in Illinois during the month of May. West suburban Sugar Grove came close Tuesday morning, tying the state’s previous record of 21°.
-Tom Skilling
WGN-TV Chief Meteorologist Tom Skilling and the WGN Weather Center staff provide daily coverage of weather in the Chicago area.
