Only nine Chicago Thanksgivings in the past 136 years—just 7% of them—have produced a 60°+ high. A 60° high Thursday would not only be 17° above normal, 20° warmer than a year ago (the area had recorded 1” of snow a day earlier) and more typical of late October—it would also make this the warmest Thanksgiving since the 61° high in 1998.
Chicago sits on the east side of a record-breaking warm air mass which pushed the mercury to 74° at both Imperial and Valentine, Neb. Wednesday. New warm temperature benchmarks were established at least 20 cities across 6 states. The warmth comes only two days beyond late-arriving reports from Orlando of Florida’s first November snow flurries since 1912.
The powerful storm which lashed the Carolinas north to the mid-Atlantic Wednesday produced 82 m.p.h. gusts at Alligator River, NC and 6.39” of rain at Cape Hatteras.
--By Tom Skilling, WGN-TV Chief Meteorologist
WGN-TV Chief Meteorologist Tom Skilling and the WGN Weather Center staff provide daily coverage of weather in the Chicago area.
