The summer's warmest days typically follow in the weeks just beyond July 4. But you'd
never know it from the weather of recent days. Void of the stifling humidities so typical of
summer, the dry air of recent nights has permitted temperatures to drop quickly to levels
more typical of a month earlier. Friday opened with a 52-degree official low at O'Hare --
just two degrees off the 1980 record low of 50. Friday night's temperature decline was
predicted to yield 40s in far west suburban locations a second consecutive night.
Warming takes hold the remainder of the holiday weekend. The same air mass
responsible for a 102-degree high in Billings, Mont., and Denver's 97-degree peak
reading Friday is expanding eastward. Southerly winds within it are to tap Gulf moisture
in the next two days. In absolute terms, the amount of moisture in the air on Friday
here will quadruple by Monday. Its moisture is expected to fuel some clusters of
thunderstorms.
LAKE MICHIGAN STILL RISING
The Army Corps of Engineers reports Lake Michigan's water level is now 7" above a year
ago. That means the lake now holds 2.73 trillion gallons more water than it did the
same time last year.
--Tom Skilling, Chief Meteorologist, WGN-TV/Chicago Tribune
