CITYWIDE — Open the home windows, give your air-con a break and take a stroll exterior — as a result of Thursday and Friday’s cooler temperatures received’t final lengthy for Chicago.
It’ll hit 74 levels Thursday and 80 levels Friday with low humidity, stated WGN meteorologist Invoice Snyder.
“Then it’s again within the soup,” Snyder stated. “Again within the sauna subsequent week.”
It’s not your creativeness — this summer time has been scorching and humid. Earlier than Thursday’s cooldown, Chicago had endured 29 out of the previous 31 days the place the excessive temperature was above regular, Snyder stated.
“We’ve already had 18 days the place temperatures attain 90-plus levels since meteorological summer time started on June 1,” Snyder stated. “The typical for a complete summer time is 17, so we’re going to far eclipse that whole.”
“To not point out we had 32 consecutive days of hitting 80 levels in Chicago earlier than Thursday, the sixth-longest streak in recorded Chicago climate historical past.”
As of Wednesday — the midway level of meteorological summer time — the common temperature in Chicago at any given time this summer time was 75.8 levels. That’s roughly 3.5 levels hotter than regular, making it Chicago’s fifth-warmest summer time in 154 years, Snyder stated.
Chicago’s warmest summer time on report was 2012. By this level that yr, Chicago had reached 90 levels 30 occasions already.
And humidity’s been a lot increased this yr, too. Snyder blames the rise on two components: an anomaly in a climate system and corn.
“The Bermuda-Azores Excessive stress system usually sits in the course of the Atlantic Ocean, however this yr it’s moved additional west, bringing extra tropical air to the U.S. east coast and Midwest,” Snyder stated.
After which there’s the corn sweat.
“The technical time period is ‘evapotranspiration’, however mainly it’s humidity evaporating off the corn throughout Illinois, which raises humidity ranges throughout, together with Chicago,” Snyder stated.
Mature corn crops give off 35 billion gallons of water every day in Illinois — sufficient to fill over 52,000 Olympic-sized swimming swimming pools, in accordance with the Nationwide Climate Service’s Central Illinois division.
After the two-day reprieve, the humidity will return to Chicago Saturday, and it’ll proceed all subsequent week.
“The warmth will construct again up,” Snyder stated. “Storms will cycle on the sting of the warmth dome. The air can be very muggy, the corn sweat can be at peak season, and it’s a recipe for essentially the most humid air of the season.
“So give the AC a fast break now. God is aware of it’s been working time beyond regulation.”
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