The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Wild weather continues

Yesterday we broke a heat record; today the temperature feels more or less normal for late December; this weekend it will get warm again. Welcome to Chicago:

The record-breaking warmth comes on the heels of another historic ranking. With a high of 57 Wednesday, this year now ranks No. 2 on the list of warmest Christmas Days in Chicago since the mid-1800s, when records started being kept. The warmest Dec. 25 ever in Chicago was 17°C degrees in 1982.

But after the daytime high pushes the record for warmest Dec. 26 further out of reach, the city should brace for a rollercoaster of cold and warm days, [meteorologist Mark] Ratzer warned.

“Very late afternoon, it looks like probably just after dark, so between 5 and 7, a front will go through, and we’ll cool down markedly,” Ratzer said. “We’ll drop pretty quickly into the single-digits Celsius, which isn’t that bad, but overnight we’ll be back around freezing.”

After a brisk Friday, the temperature again will rebound into the low-teens Celsius in time for a mild and comfortable weekend, although it will be rainy, he said.

“Then we’ll cool off again by Monday,” Ratzer said.

Parker did not like the change at all, moping around on his two walks today like the ancient dog he has become. Maybe this weekend he'll feel more spring in his step again?

Second-warmest Christmas; warmest Boxing Day

Yesterday's 14°C high temperature made it the second-warmest Christmas on record in Chicago, missing by a lot the 17°C record set in 1982. The warmth continued overnight: the temperature at O'Hare hit 14°C just after midnight, surpassing the 13°C record for December 26th set in 1971. Today's forecast calls for 20°C.

These temperatures would be normal in October and April—or Atlanta and Dallas.

Yesterday Parker got an hour and a quarter of walks; today he'll get about the same. And I may even open windows in my apartment.

Temperatures should get more seasonal promptly. A cold front should get us back to normal December temperatures tonight, and we have rain and snow coming in Sunday night. New Year's Eve should give us a close-to-normal 1°C high.

Happy Christmas all

Every year at this time, it's important to talk about language skills. There is a tribe in the remotest part of the Amazon forest who, every December 25th, dance around a large pile of dirt, singing to it and telling it stories. This is because of a tragic mistranslation by a missionary centuries ago, who told them, "On this day the ton of sod was bored."

Moments in great timing

First event: Last night around 7pm, my main data drive seized up after storing my stuff for a bit less than 4 years. Let me tell you how much fun Micro Center is at 9pm two days before Christmas. After 12 hours it looks like it's about 75% restored from backup, and I didn't suffer any data loss.

Second event: Just look at this lovely, peaceful scene:

That's the cemetery in my neighborhood a few minutes ago. And that's what we call "dense fog," with about 200 m visibility and what they call "indeterminate" ceilings at 100 m.

Which is exactly what you want in Chicago on Christmas Eve, the second-biggest travel day of the year:

Amid dense fog reducing visibility in Chicago, the Federal Aviation Administration early Tuesday grounded incoming flights at Chicago’s O’Hare International and Midway airports until at least 8 a.m.

For a short time Tuesday morning all flights were grounded, according to the FAA, but as of 7:30 a.m. the agency’s website noted the “ground stoppage,” or halting of flights, was indicated only for airplanes arriving at the city’s two airports. Flights were departing regularly at Midway, according to travelers at the airport.

Still, the ground stoppage for incoming flights means not all departing flights will leave on time and travelers could miss connecting flights, leading to a chain-reaction of air travel delays during a traditionally peak period for travel.

Have a safe and fun travel day, and if you're going to or through Chicago, enjoy your airport time.

...and winter isn't screwing around

At least, not in the Northeast:

In the Northeast, heavy snow, mixed precipitation and strong winds are expected to develop in many areas beginning as early as Sunday. Freezing rain was already falling in parts of Pennsylvania on Sunday, making roads hazardous, and the stage is set for a burdensome Monday morning commute for many from New York to Portland, Maine.

As of Sunday morning, the storm that will evolve into the first big storm of the 2019-2020 winter season in the Northeast was centered 700 miles west of New England, just east of Chicago.

But its expansive precipitation shield was branching well off to the east, with heavy rains and downpours reaching as far south as Augusta, Ga. That slug of moisture — which has slowed traffic on Interstate 95 along much of the Eastern Seaboard — wrapped all the way up through Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Buffalo and even into Detroit, before curling north as snow in northern Wisconsin and Michigan.

Snowfall totals of over 300 mm are possible in eastern New York state east of Interstate 81 by the time the long-duration storm ends. Pockets of up to 450 mm may punctuate some spots in the Catskills and Hudson Valley.

For once, Chicago will miss the worst of it.

How does one pack for this?

We have pretty normal autumn weather in Chicago right now, in that it's gray and cold with temperatures about 3°C below normal. Friday morning, when I fly out, temperatures will fall to 10°C below normal and then 13°C below normal when I get back Tuesday.

We have this ridiculous late-autumn chill because of climate change. Warm air over Greenland and the Grand Banks has distorted the circumpolar jet stream into an omega shape, bringing the Arctic to Canada and the central US and bringing California to Alaska. Check out the map.

I'll just have to drive to O'Hare and leave a winter coat in my car, I suppose.

Backfield in motion

That's American for the English idiom "penny in the air." And what a penny. More like a whole roll of them.

Right now, the House of Commons are wrapping up debate on the Government's bill to prorogue Parliament (for real this time) and have elections the second week of December. The second reading of the bill just passed by voice vote (the "noes" being only a few recalcitrant MPs), so the debate continues. The bill is expected to pass—assuming MPs can agree on whether to have the election on the 9th, 11th, or 12th of December. Regardless, that means I'll be in London during the first weekend of the election campaign, and I'm elated.

Meanwhile, a whole bunch of other things made the news in the last day:

  • Writing for the New Yorker, Sam Knight argues that before Boris Johnson became PM, it was possible to imagine a Brexit that worked for the UK. Instead, Johnson has poisoned UK politics for a generation.
  • Presidents Trump and Obama came to Chicago yesterday, but only one of the personally insulted us. Guess which one.
  • That one also made top military officers squirm yesterday when he released classified information about our assassination of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, including a photograph of the dog injured in the raid. The dog's name remained classified, even as it seemed clear that he was a very good boy.
  • Grinnell College in Iowa released polling data today showing just how much people don't like President Trump. Moreover, 80% of those polled thought a presidential candidate seeking election help from a foreign government was unacceptable. Adam Schiff cracking his knuckles could be heard all the way to the Grinnell campus.
  • An appellate court in North Carolina ruled that the election maps drawn up by the Republican Party unfairly gerrymander a Republican majority, and must be re-drawn for the 2020 election.
  • Grubhub's share price crashed today after the company released a written statement ahead of its earnings call later this week. The company made $1.0 million on $322.1 million in revenue during the 3rd quarter, and projected a loss for the 4th quarter.
  • The City of Atlanta decided not to pay ransom to get their computers working again, in order to reduce the appeal of ransomware attacks.

Finally, it looks like it could snow in Chicago on Thursday. Color me annoyed.

Gross April weather continues

This month, Chicago has gotten some truly awful weather, more than most Aprils I remember. We saw only the second April in history to get two—count 'em—two snowstorms, the other time in 1938. This caps the snowiest season in 5 years and the 6th snowiest April ever.

Even though we had gorgeous, seasonably-cool weather yesterday, today through Thursday we will get so much rain not even the president could hyperbolize it enough.

We just want spring. The four days in April we got decent spring weather somehow don't seem sufficient.

Didn't we leave this party weeks ago?

The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for Chicago:

...WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 1 PM THIS AFTERNOON TO 1 AM CDT SUNDAY...

  • WHAT...Rain transitioning to a heavy, very wet snow early in the afternoon and continuing into this evening. Total snow accumulations of 3 to 8 inches will be possible by this evening, with the highest amounts across northern portions of Kane, DuPage, and Cook counties. Snowfall rates of 1 to 2 inches per hour will be possible for several hours this afternoon into this evening. Accumulations of 1 inch or less are expected across portions of southern Cook County. Northeast winds will also gust as high as 35 mph late this afternoon and evening.
  • WHERE...Kane, DuPage and Cook Counties.
  • WHEN...From 1 PM this afternoon to 1 AM CDT Sunday. Heaviest snowfall rates 3 to 8 PM.
  • ADDITIONAL DETAILS...Travel could be very difficult in heavy snowfall and gusty winds with greatly reduced visibilities. Minor tree damage will also be possible to due to the heavy snow and wind.

We still don't know how bad it will be, despite the warning:

Forecasters said they still were tracking the exact path of the storm Saturday morning, but the possibility of snow was most likely north of Interstate 88 — and areas most likely to be hit by more snow were expected to be on the Northwest Side, in northern Cook County suburbs and in Lake and McHenry counties.

Downtown and along the north lakefront, 50–75 mm of accumulation was predicted. The storm should end by midnight, the weather service said.

And yet, we've had worse. We had over 25 mm of snow on 1 May 1940, and measurable snowfall on 22 May 1917. And in Chicago, we won't have the up to 225 mm they'll get in parts of Wisconsin.