Lake breezes restrict 90s to southwest suburbs

Temperatures across Chicago's south and southwest suburbs surged above 90 degrees
Friday. Highs there included 92 degrees at New Lenox and Markham, and 91 degrees at
Alsip and Griffith, Ind.
But the rain-cooled outflow from a diminishing cluster of thunderstorms sent easterly
lake breezes across much of Cook and Lake Counties in Illinois and into southeast
Wisconsin -- again sparing that portion of the Chicago area a 90-degree temperature.
New waves of thunderstorms were predicted to sweep the area overnight into this
morning. They come on the heels of five separate thunderstorm clusters the past two
days -- the most dramatic of them responsible for Thursday evening's widely observed
and photographed "shelf clouds."
Saturday's storm threat is the product of an approaching cold front that spawned at
least eight twisters in Minnesota -- some from 58,000-foot-tall thunderstorms.
RECORD RAINS SWAMP TUCSON
Monsoon-type rains hit the Southwest on Friday, scuttling the extreme heat of recent
weeks there while dropping 1.66 inches of rain on Tucson, Ariz. -- that city's
11th-wettest single calendar day in July.
--Tom Skilling, Chief Meteorologist, WGN-TV/Chicago Tribune