Across drought-stricken northeast Illinois, Friday’s “hit and miss” thunderstorms were mostly a miss. The day’s muggy air managed to generate only a single thunderstorm of consequence, but what an event it was. An early afternoon deluge put down 2 3/4 inches of water just to the northeast of Kankakee. In the immediate Chicago area, however, showers were so brief and light that they went practically unnoticed.
The world’s heaviest one-month rain total, an incredible 366.14 inches, happens to be a July event. That rain, ten times Chicago’s average annual total, all came down in July, 1861, at Cherrapunji, India, and it’s a record that survives to the present.
At the U.S. South Pole Station in Antarctica, temperatures in July of 1997 averaged 86.8ºF below zero, thereby establishing a new record for the world’s coldest month.
WGN-TV Chief Meteorologist Tom Skilling and the WGN Weather Center staff provide daily coverage of weather in the Chicago area.
