Sunday’s afternoon temperature, 96º, marks the highest reading registered in Chicago since 97º was logged on August 2, 2006. It’s also within shooting distance of the official record high for the date, 99º (in 1955).
However, it has been hotter on July 8. A review of Midway Airport temperature data from 1928 to the present reveals that the city sizzled at 106º on that date in 1936, but that reading is not considered to be an official temperature because the University of Chicago was the city’s official weather observation site in 1936. The University thermometer, “cooled” by a lake breeze, stalled at 95º that day.
While summer is in progress here, it’s winter down under. Vostok Station, Antarctica—620 miles from the South Pole—holds the world’s low-temperature record (-129º, on July 21, 1983), and its expected minimum on Sunday morning is -88º. That is 184° colder than Chicago’s Sunday temperature!
--By Richard Koeneman, WGN Weather Center Meteorologist
WGN-TV Chief Meteorologist Tom Skilling and the WGN Weather Center staff provide daily coverage of weather in the Chicago area.
