The area's most persistent hot spell of the summer is under way and predicted to hold
into the weekend. The heat encompasses sections of 36 states and produced highs
approaching 100 degrees in Nebraska and Kansas. Here in Chicago, three -- and
possibly four -- additional 90-degree highs are on the way by Saturday. Temperatures
first reached 90 degrees at 1:50 p.m. Tuesday at Midway Airport and at 2.49 p.m. at
O'Hare -- only the second time this year the city's official thermometer has made it to
that benchmark reading. Other area highs included 93 degrees in New Lennox, Alsip
and Chicago's Lincoln Park and 92 degrees in Berwyn and Harwood Heights.
The heat accompanies the season's first build-up of ozone. The Illinois EPA's Chris
Price cautions those with respiratory ailments to avoid overexertion outdoors.
REPETITIVE T-STORMS THREATEN MAJOR RAINFALLS IN COMING DAYS IN THE WEST
AND NORTHERN MIDWEST
With the jet stream locked into its summer position paralleling the U.S.- Canadian
border, impulses are likely to ignite t-storms which travel over the same terrain
multiple times in coming days. It's a prime set-up for big totals in sections of the
Dakotas, Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota and Wisconsin.
--Tom Skilling, Chief Meteorologist, WGN-TV/Chicago Tribune
