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.
WGN-TV Chief Meteorologist Tom Skilling and the WGN Weather Center staff provide daily coverage of weather in the Chicago area.
