Potentially big rains Thursday-Friday

As one of the wettest Octobers on record winds down, the door is still open for yet another one-inch plus rainfall for the Chicago area. Rainfall totals are running an inch and a half ahead of normal at the official O’Hare observing site. Midway’s veteran weather observer Frank Wachowski has measured 6.20" of precipitation, the fourth-wettest in records dating back to 1928 and still within reach of the third-wettest 8.21" recorded back in 1941. Various computer models differ somewhat on the final track of the late work-week storm, but the consensus path up the Ohio River Valley into the eastern Great Lakes favors heavy rains over much of Indiana reaching back into northern and central Illinois. Another measure of Chicago’s unusually cold October is the fact that the month has logged five days in which the high temperature failed to reach 50°—135 years of weather records reveal that only one such chilly day is typical by Oct. 24.
-Paul Dailey WGN-TV Meteorologist