Less than 7% of September days as cool as Tuesday

Chicagoans find themselves in rare temperature territory Tuesday. The day’s November-level predicted high of 55° represents a 16° decline from Monday’s 71° and is more than 25° cooler than Sunday’s summerlike 82°. But even more impressive is the fact that only 265 of the 4,050 September high temps on the books here since 1871 have failed to warm above 59°. A high in the 50s Tuesday would mark only the 266th time that’s happened ranking it among the coolest 7% of September daytime highs on record in Chicago.
A second consecutive high In the 50s at Midway Airport Wednesday would establish still another cool weather benchmark for so early in the season. Dependent upon extensive cloudiness lingering, such a reading would mark the first time since May that back to back 50s have occurred and only the fourth time since 1928 that two or more highs in the 50s have been logged this early in the season.
-Tom Skilling