The Chicago area’s drought severity has moved from “severe” to “extreme” in the latest U.S. Drought Monitor report issued Thursday. The only category of severity which remains is “exceptional”—and the region may be headed in that direction unless much needed rains arrive soon. With slowly rising temperatures expected to build into real heat by early next week, conditions are sure to deteriorate. Officially, measurable rain has fallen only 38 days since March 1. That’s only two days more by this date than in the infamous 1988 drought. The long term average for measurable rain days since 1871 is 48.
Though drought is in full bloom across Illinois and northern Indiana, lake breeze thunderstorms erupted downstate Thursday afternoon. Doppler radar scans put cloud tops in several of the storms at 45,000 ft. and estimated rainfall over a small section of Livingston County at 4 and 5 inches.
WGN-TV Chief Meteorologist Tom Skilling and the WGN Weather Center staff provide daily coverage of weather in the Chicago area.
