Even with autumn’s official start less than 5 days away, summer weather was back in all its glory Tuesday. Temperatures soared to 90° at Midway Airport and Chicago’s lakefront and reached 91° at Gary and Kankakee. O’Hare’s 88° official high was 15° above normal and occurred two weeks beyond the average last date for an 88° high at the site, which is Sept. 5. Suburban residents, who only four days earlier had scraped an unseasonably early frost off cars, joined others across the metro area in marking July-level temperatures, including the city’s latest 90° temperature in 7 years at Midway Airport.
The atmospheric demarcation between Chicago’s warmth and much cooler air to the west grew stormy late Tuesday. T-storms whipped sections of Iowa with 60-70 m.p.h. wind gusts. The storms were predicted to weaken as they crossed the Mississippi, arriving in Chicago early Wednesday as patches of leftover cloudiness.
--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.
