Less than two weeks ago, southern Minnesota had 25 cm of snow on the ground. Yesterday, the region hit 40°C following the biggest two-day temperature swing in decades:

Even more dramatic were the stunning weather changes which occurred to Chicago's west Tuesday. Soaring temperatures smashed records from Nebraska into western Iowa, Minnesota and western Wisconsin—areas which less than 2 weeks earlier had been crippled by a record-breaking foot or more of late-season snow.

Albert Lea, Minnesota recorded a 38°C high Tuesday. Only 12 days earlier that city had been buried under a 250 mm accumulation of snow.

Iowa's state climatologist Harry Hillaker reported in a special weather statement out of the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Des Moines Tuesday that 38°C or higher temperatures have occurred in the month of May on only 11 occasions since official weather records began in the state in 1873. Even rarer have been 38°C readings two weeks after a major snowstorm. Hillaker reports this has happened only a few times over that period.

Here in Chicago, O'Hare hit 33°C and Midway hit 32°C, while at Inner Drive Technology World Headquarters—800 m from Lake Michigan—the temperature hovered around 21°C until the sun went down. Without the sun heating the city, the lake breeze stopped, and temperatures rose. Sitting at Wrigley Field last night, I had my sweater on in the first two innings and was down to a T-shirt by the 6th.

Today's forecast calls for rapidly dropping temperatures bottoming out around 14°C by 4pm.

Welcome to 400 ppm CO₂, folks. With more energy in the atmosphere, continental climates like the Midwest U.S. will have these violent temperature changes pretty normally from now on.

Just about an hour ago, crews lowered the last piece onto the 124 m spire topping One World Trade Center, making it the tallest building in the hemisphere:

The 18-piece silver spire will top out the tower at a symbolic 1,776 feet (541 m), a nod to the year America signed the Declaration of Independence. The new building is just north of the original towers, now the hallowed ground known as Ground Zero.

"This really is a symbolic moment because this building really represents the resiliency of this country," Port Authority Vice Chair Scott Rechler told [NBC's] Matt Lauer, who earlier had made his way up the 104 floors to witness the process. "These people, the thousand men and women who have worked here tirelessly, really as a tribute for the people that perished on 9-11 right on this site."

This also bumps Chicago to second place. Until this morning, the 442 m Willis Tower was the tallest building in the U.S., and had been for 40 years.

The Tribune reports this morning that some groundskeeping duties at O'Hare will soon get turned over to a herd of goats:

The city's Department of Aviation is expected to announce Wednesday that it has awarded a contract to Central Commissary Holdings LLC — operator of Lincoln Park restaurant Butcher & The Burger — to bring about 25 goats onto airport property, helping the airport launch its pilot vegetation-management program.

Joseph Arnold, partner at Butcher & The Burger, said the goats now live on a farm in Barrington Hills and will make "the perfect lawn mowers" for the city's largest airport.

In about a month, Arnold said, the goats will be delivered to O'Hare and begin their task of munching away at overgrown greenery. According to the city's request for bids last fall, the animals will be expected to clear about 23 square meters of vegetation per day.

Apparently the goats can go up and down embankments a lot easier than the lawnmowers they currently use.

Time to drop by Butcher & the Burger.

Pollen levels in Chicago have exploded in the past week:

The area’s pollen values surged Tuesday to the highest levels of the year, the latest development in a allergy season which has brought misery to many across the Chicago area. Dr. Joseph Leija, allergist at Loyola Gottlieb Memorial Hospital and provider of this area’s pollen counts, lamented in his daily report that the slow pace of spring warming has combined with the season’s huge rain tallies to bring high tree counts at the same time high grass and weed levels are present. The result, says Dr. Leija, has been to make allergy sufferers miserable despite the lovely weather of late. Swollen and itchy eyes were among the reasons many patients visited his office as well as the need for medication adjustments

Tree, grass and weed pollen were ALL reported as “high” Tuesday. Tree pollen reached 1,000 grains per cubic yard—just 500 below the “alert level” of 1,500.

This is just tree pollen; the mold, grass, and ragweed maps have pretty colors over Illinois also:

I've been sneezing and coughing for three days now. I'm really looking forward to the plants finishing up their orgy of...well, orgies.

Over the past week, the city replaced the north leaf of the Wells St. Bridge. This morning it looked like this:

Previous coverage here.

Since its purchase by InBev (Anheuser Busch) two years ago, Goose Island Brewing Co. has increased production significantly by brewing beer in other states. While this does allow them to produce more beer and to sell it nationwide, it has also changed the beer. Green Line Pale Ale now comes from Baldwinsville, N.Y., which I'm pretty sure doesn't have an El. Flagship 312 Urban Wheat Ale comes from Baldwinsville (area code 315) and Fort Collins, Colo. (area code 970). Since water is the principal ingredient of beer, I wonder how this could fail to change the formula.

Goose Island CEO Andrew Goler says it doesn't:

“Anheuser-Busch is letting us do our own thing,” says [Goeler], who took over as Goose Island's CEO on Jan. 1, replacing founder John Hall. “I'm not getting directives.”

When Belgium's Anheuser-Busch InBev swallowed Goose Island for $38.8 million in 2011, it provided a relief valve for an overwhelmed brewing facility. (The companies were intertwined in 2006 when Goose Island signed a distribution deal with Anheuser-Busch.)

Moving production for three of Goose Island's most popular beers out of Chicago, a decision that enthusiasts worried was the beginning of the end for the craft brand, solved a long-standing problem of pent-up demand. Top sellers are now brewed at Anheuser-Busch InBev facilities in Fort Collins, Colo., and Baldwinsville, N.Y., an expansion that allows Goose Island bottles to be carried in all 50 states.

"I think there were some irrational doubts about what's going to happen to Goose Island," says Greg Hall, 47, Goose Island's former brewmaster and son of its founder. "It's not like they're trying to make India Pale Ale and Bud Light comes out."

No, but it's no longer the same IPA, either.

Large corporations tend to digest smaller acquisitions. And Goose Island is no longer part of the Craft Brewers Association, because it's no longer a craft brew. We'll see how long Goose Island retains its independence.

Did I mention cold and wet? Yeah, it's wet all right:

Tuesday marked April 2013's 11th day of measurable rain. The day's 15.5 mm rain accumulation was enough to put this month's 215 mm tally (late Tuesday night, with rains still falling) into the record books as the wettest April to occur over Chicago's 143-year observational record.

The previous record for most April precipitation here—212 mm—was retired after a 66 year run dating back to 1947.

The new 215 mm monthly total is more than 9 times (939%) the amount of rain which had fallen during April's opening 23 days a year ago (23 mm) and 2.5 times the full month's 86 mm "normal" total.

Add to that, we're running 2°C below normal, and we've seen 41% of our possible sunshine (normal for April is 52%).

The rain has helped Lake Michigan water levels, but not as much as one would expect.

This weekend they're predicting 21°C and sunny, finally. We'll see.

As a large part of my brain noodles on how to get multiple IDPs to work with a single RP, a smaller part of my brain has looked out the window and realized Chicago is having a normally crappy April:

• The are 5-13 after allowing a run in the bottom of the 13th last night in Milwaukee;
• It's 13°C 7°C and raining, which is great because we need the rain and cool weather; and
• ...well, that's all I got right now.

I had a third thing, but SAML got in the way, I guess.

We had a lovely weekend in Chicago, and today the sun is still out. Not like last week, which drenched the state:

Northern and central Illinois saw widespread heavy rains on April 18-19, 2013. As a result, widespread flooding occurred first at the local level and then along major rivers by the weekend. Last year we had the drought; this year we have what I’m calling the “anti-drought”.

Below is the multi-sensor precipitation map for the 7-day period ending April 19, 2013. This map is based on radar-estimated precipitation and calibrated using available raingauges. Some of the heaviest rains fell north of a line between Quincy and Kankakee. Areas in purple reported between 150 and 200 mm, while the areas in the two shades of red were between 100 and 150 mm. Areas to the south of Interstate 70 escaped the heavier rains.

So, yeah. Damp.

Oh, and the Cubs are now 5-12, going into a 3-day series against first-place Cincinnati. So, yeah.

For five whole days of the past seven, I saw sunlight. Not a little; I saw tons of it. There were rumors of clouds, but mostly, just sunlight.

Since I returned home Tuesday night we've not had any. Instead, we've had this:

Storm totals in just the last 14 hours have gotten up to 125 mm in places, flooding highways and making life a wet hell:

The first expressway closures occurred around 5 a.m. The Edens Expressway was closed between Foster and Touhy avenues and between Winnetka and Willow roads, and the Eisenhower Expressway was shut down in both directions between North Avenue and York Road and westbound at Mannheim Road, Illinois State Police said. The southbound Kennedy Expressway was closed at Addison Street, police said.

As of 9:30 a.m., the Kennedy was open in both directions, though some standing water remained. The Edens was closed in both directions between Lake Street and Dundee Road in the north suburbs, and the northbound Edens was closed at Montrose; the westbound ramp from Interstate 290 to Interstate 88 was shut down, westbound 290 was closed at St. Charles Road, and eastbound 290 was closed at York Road; two lanes were closed on the Bishop Ford northbound between 130th Street and the Beaubien Woods.

Travel times during the morning rush ran at least two hours or longer in some areas.

For my part, both last night and this morning I misjudged approaching squall lines and got a bit damp. Parker, for his part, missed them both completely.

It seems the rain has moved off to the east now as a warm front pushes up through the area. (It's 10°C at O'Hare but 19°C in Valparaiso, 70 km southeast.) The warm front will depart the area later today, just to keep variety going, dragging more rain and cold back through overnight.

We may get drier, warmer weather someday. Someday.

The Chicago Tribune reported this morning that, 8 years into the O'Hare Modernization Project, some nearby residents are horrified to learn they might get more noise:

Residents of Edgebrook, Sauganash, Forest Glen, North Park and other Northwest Side Chicago communities are up in arms over the impending increases in noise pollution, which were forecast in Chicago Department of Aviation environmental impact documents in 2005, the same year the Federal Aviation Administration approved the city's O'Hare runway expansion plan.

In addition to the impact on city residents, some suburban neighborhoods that have been spared from low-altitude jet noise are in store for louder environs.

A major shift in airplane noise patterns, known as noise contours, will take place beginning Oct. 17 when the next new runway — 10 Center/28 Center, located south of the passenger terminals — opens as part of the O'Hare Modernization Program. The addition of the runway will trigger a shift to a mostly eastbound and westbound flow of planes approaching and departing O'Hare, accompanied by reduced use of three diagonally aligned crosswind runways, the FAA said.

Uh, yeah. Airplanes will fly over houses 3 km from O'Hare, just as they have for, oh, 70 years. However, airplanes today are much quieter than even 10 years ago, so the noise footprints have gotten a lot smaller since the environmental study came out in 2005.

Still, airport noise complaints baffle me. No one living under the runway 28 departure path at O'Hare suffers more noise pollution now than in 2003, when the O'Hare Modernization Program kicked off. Why are they just complaining now?

Yesterday American's scheduling and ticketing systems went offline around 11:00 CDT. By noon CDT, the Dallas Morning News had this:

“American’s reservation and booking tool, Sabre, is offline,” American spokeswoman Andrea Huguely said at midday. “We’re working to resolve the issue as quickly as we can. We apologize to our customers for any inconvenience.” (American subsequently absolved Sabre of any blame. ”We apologize to Sabre & customers for confusion.”)

She confirmed that the problem is causing some delays of American flights.

Shortly after, American grounded all of its flights for about three hours before getting its networks talking to each other around 3pm CDT.

I found out about this crash while stepping off the BART at SFO. My dad texted, "Are you affected by the AA ground halt?" Talk about a WTF? moment.

I was affected, but I'm happy to report that (a) I got to SFO shortly before American resolved the problem, and (b) American's gate agents had their crap together and got everyone out as quickly as possible. I was only 30 minutes late arriving at O'Hare.

American hasn't explained what happened yet; the Dallas Morning News has a theory...

I used not having my charger with me as an excuse to leave my laptop off for 36 hours. That didn't prevent me getting email, of course. (Who can live without email?)

Because of some family scheduling, while I'm in the Bay Area this weekend the Giants are at Wrigley, meaning I'm missing games there and at AT&T Park.

I listened to the game yesterday driving down from the city to the peninsula, catching the Cubs 2-run homer in the 7th, followed by the nausea-inducing announcement that they brought Carlos Marmol in as a reliever. Yep: Cubs lost, 3-2.

Tomorrow I have an 8am conference call, and Tuesday I have a 7am call, but until then...I'm on vacation. I might even watch today's game on TV.

We've had a bit of rain this month. In fact, we haven't seen the sun since Monday:

Our abundant April showers have made this the 20th wettest April to date on record. O'Hare has seen rain 6 out of the opening 11 days this month totalling 48.5 mm or 18.3 mm above average. Saturday is the only dry day in our 7 day forecast with the active April pattern continuing next week.

The good news is that recent rain has helped alleviate the dry conditions that existed over northern and northwest Illinois. For the first time in several months none of Illinois is in drought or even "abnormally dry". However, most of Minnesota and Iowa are experiencing drought conditions and nearly half of Wisconsin is in at least a moderate drought.

Of course, the rain is keeping us cool...and the cool is keeping us wet...so it's beginning to feel a lot more like London than Chicago.

I've always liked Peet's Coffee, and even owned shares back when it was publicly traded. (Made a few beans on them as well.) I've always liked Caribou Coffee, too. So I'm taking it as mixed but generally positive news that Caribou stores in Chicago will switch to Peet's stores over the next two years:

Caribou didn't provide a list of stores affected by the closings or conversions. But most downtown Chicago Caribou locations will remain open and be rebranded Peet's stores by 2015. Employees at the chain's Long Grove, Lake Forest, Northbrook and Winnetka locations said Monday that their stores also would remain open, eventually becoming Peet's. It's unclear if personnel in those stores will retain their jobs.

Peet's, which has about 200 cafes, has a significant presence in larger retail stores, including Jewel, Target and Dominick's. Peet's has two area locations, at North & Clybourn avenues and in Evanston, according to the chain's website.

Robert Passikoff, president of consulting firm Brand Keys, said companies "don't make this kind of decision casually." While Caribou "was doing very well," he said, its new owners likely believe that coffee drinkers in the area "are in fact looking for a different kind of experience, and they have (Peet's) in their arsenal, so why not try it?"

Watch this space this weekend, when I'll no doubt have several posts from Peet's Coffee stores out west.

Parker and I took our first walk in pouring rain, but things seem to have cleared up. The Tribune expects OK weather for the 1:20 start:

Despite a wet, gloomy and cool start to the day, conditions should improve dramatically this afternoon in time for the Cubs opener. Temperatures around 7°C this morning will rebound into the teens later today with the passage of a warm front.

The Cubs, now 2-4 for the season and having already replaced their benighted reliever Carlos Marmol, would at least not lose a rain-out...but I'm happy to see my first game in seven months at Wrigley.

Chicago has finally gotten up to 21°C for the first time since December 1st. My screens are back in, my dog got some good walks, and my apartment is fresher.

I just hope it's like this on Monday.

Back in November, Chicagoans voted to buy electricity in the aggregate from Integrys rather than the quasi-public utility Exelon. As predicted, the big savings only lasted a few months:

And Chicago, where residents saw their first electric-bill savings this month under a 5.42-cent-per-kilowatt-hour deal completed in December with Integrys, will see its energy savings shaved to just 2 percent.

ComEd's new price is not yet official. But utility representatives have filed their new energy price of 4.6 cents per kilowatt-hour with the ICC and have told the commission they expect forthcoming transmission charges to be about another 0.95 cents per kilowatt-hour. That will make the ComEd "price to compare" cited by competing suppliers when marketing their offerings about 5.55 cents.

That said, between the new Integrys rate that hit me on my last electricity bill, and moving to the cloud, my March bill was only 54% of my average bill from 2009 to 2012. So ComEd is lowering rates too? Good. It'll still be higher than Integrys.

The female half of Pomplamoose, Nataly Dawn Knutsen, played a venue four blocks from my house yesterday, so I just had to go.

She and her touring partners Lauren O'Connell and Ryan Lerman were as charming and talented in person as their music makes them seem. Dawn is also tall (178 cm in flats), which isn't readily apparent from her videos.

The tour moves east through April before going back to California at month's end. Also, Knutsen assured me that Pomplamoose will continue.

Illinois State Climatologist Jim Angel reports our 12-month drought has finally ended:

According to the US Drought Monitor, Illinois is now drought free for the first time since April 3, 2012. Most areas in Illinois have seen positive responses in soil moisture, stream flows, lake levels, and groundwater levels since the fall. A small area of northwest Illinois remains as abnormally dry due to some lingering concerns about subsoil moisture and groundwater levels in that area.

It was pretty grim for a while, with Lake Michigan levels falling to record lows and farmers losing crops downstate. So as squishy as this year has been, in a state whose principal economic products are still agricultural, the rain and snow has been very helpful.

The WGN Weather Blog explains it:

The unseasonably chilly pattern which has descended on Chicago and the Midwest is being driven by a new round of atmospheric blocking in the arctic. The so-called Greenland block has returned and is predicted by global forecast models to dominate the closing weeks of March and spill over into early April....

Blocking patterns in the arctic, like the one now in place, occur when vast pools of warmer than normal air take up residence aloft. As the planet's arctic regions have warmed, these blocking patterns have occurred with increasing frequency and with a variety of impacts felt to the south in the mid-latitudes.

Climate researchers point to the growing volatility of mid-latitude weather as examples of the sorts of changes which may be expected to become more frequent in years and decades to come as additional warming takes place.

The vast reservoir of warmer than normal air aloft, which currently covers much of the arctic, extends from northern Russia across the North Pole and into Northeast Canada. Such pools of warmer than normal air act to dislodge the frigid air indigenous to the arctic, sending the chill cascading southward into portions of the Lower 48.

Yesterday Chicago got all the way up to -4°C, fully 33°C colder than the first day of spring last year. The arctic, however, is a little warmer. Climate-change deniers are therefore reminded, one hopes, of the difference between weather and climate.

You wouldn't guess it, though. With the temperature at -8°C and winds gusting to 49 km/h, it feels more like January than March. The prediction of cooler-than-normal weather appears to have come true.

In contrast, a year ago today the low temperature was 16°C, and the (record) high temperature was 26°C—33°C warmer.

At least it's a sunny day.

Regular blog readers know that since moving to my current apartment in February 2008, the Inner Drive Technology International Data Center has occupied a couple square meters of my home office. I've also mentioned lower energy use since I started to move everything out of the IDTIDC and into Microsoft Azure.

Something else has happened to my electricity bill. In November, we citizens of Chicago voted to pool our electricity buying to get the lowest electricity cost possible. Well, the new regime kicked in last month, and the 660 kw/h I used in February cost 25% less than the 610 kw/h I used in January—which was the lowest use ever for this place.

It helps, also, that since moving my email to the cloud in June, I've used an average of 224 kw/h less electricity each month year-over-year.

I can't wait to see my bill for March. They read my meter on the 7th or 8th to prepare the bill I just got; the IDTIDC shut down on the 10th.

As I look out my window and see snow falling, I can't help thinking back to last March, in which we'd already had the third record-warm day in a row (27.8°C) on our way to the warmest spring in Chicago history.

This March, not so much:

So far, March has been both colder than average across all of Illinois and wetter than average across western and northern Illinois. The statewide temperature for March 1-14 was 0.2°C degrees, 3.0°C below average. That stands in stark contrast to last March when the statewide temperature for March 1-14 was 7.3°C, 4.1°C above average. That is a 7.1°C difference between the two periods.

The latest NWS forecasts show that rains of 25-50 mm or more could fall in the southern third of Illinois over the next five days. Also their 6-10 day and 8-14 days forecast show that colder and wetter than average conditions will prevail for the rest of March. Because of recent rains and melting snow, the NWS has issued flood warnings today on portions of the Mississippi, Illinois, and Wabash Rivers.

The next 8-14 days don't look so hot either:

Did I mention it's snowing right now? Happy St. Patrick's day.

Early this morning, the city re-opened the Wells St. bridge to El traffic after replacing a 250 ton section of it.

Here's how it looked Thursday morning:

The old south half of the bridge, being dismantled:

This morning, from neighboring LaSalle St.:

The city started replacing the bridge in November, and aims to finish this year. They will close the bridge to El traffic again from April 26th to May 6th in order to replace the north leaf.

Some amusing police work this week: Chicago cops arrested three men for stealing a dozen school buses for the simple reason that the buses had GPS devices:

The owner of a scrap company where the remains of several school buses were found after being stolen from the Far South Side has been charged with illegal possession of auto titles, police said.

Police searched the scrap dealer starting about 7 a.m. Thursday, and about 2:15 p.m., they found Quintero in the false ceiling of the parts yard's office, trying to hide from officers, Mirabelli said. Quintero, of the 4400 block of South Drake Avenue, was expected to appear in Cook County Central Bond Court today.

The 40-foot-long buses, capable of seating 75 people, were stolen sometime overnight Thursday from the bus company's yard in the 10000 block of South Torrence Avenue on the far South Side and were not discovered missing until the next morning, police said.

The buses were all equipped with GPS tracking devices, and police were able to track "their entire movement" to the scrap yard on the West Side, police said. Three of the buses were torn apart using heavy equipment, police said.

I'm always fascinated to learn about people who commit crimes because they're too stupid to do anything else.

The Illinois Republican Party will vote tomorrow on whether to kick out chairman Pat Brady after he took public positions contrary to the party platform:

Brady, of St. Charles, could be ousted over his statements supporting same-sex marriage Saturday, with committeemen meeting in Tinley Park to decide his fate.

State Sen. Jim Oberweis of Sugar Grove, 14th District Republican committeeman and a leader in the effort to remove Brady, said Brady's situation is different from committeemen who stray from the party platform.

What position on marriage equality? Well, Brady's for it—as are most of the party's senior leaders—and Oberweis isn't. Funny thing, in the last election Republicans in Illinois took a huge beating, in part because of their policies on marriage equality and other social issues. The party chairman wants to win elections. Oberweis wants ideological purity.

You have to love the Republicans these days. I've never seen a party work so hard to lose. And I'm a Democrat.

Principally, it means not having to commute in 15 cm of snow. It also means several uninterrupted hours of working on stuff. And, unfortunately, not reading all this yet:

• Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez died, finally.
• Americans are weird, bringing a lot of economics research into question.
• SimCity 5 came out today, to some criticism.
• Bad Lip Reading hits SpiderMan.

Now to walk Parker in the snow, and keep working...

Netsch was Illinois' first female nominee for governor and the Illinois controller in the 1990s. She died this morning at age 86 from complications from ALS:

She was one of the first female law professors in the United States. A liberal Democrat, she defeated the Machine-backed incumbent state Sen. Danny O’Brien to win a seat in the Illinois Senate in 1972 that she held for 18 years. Elected comptroller in 1990, she was the first woman elected to statewide office in Illinois and, four years later, the first to run with the backing of a major political party for governor, losing to incumbent Gov. Jim Edgar.

Netsch said she “never ran as a woman” but always argued, “More women are needed to make a difference in public policy.”

“She paved the way for others,” President Barack Obama wrote in a letter read at the event by former senior presidential adviser David Axelrod. “The unwavering grace and integrity [Netsch] has shown throughout decades of public service are an inspiration to us all. Dawn’s legacy will live forever in our hearts and the history books.”

I volunteered for her 1994 gubernatorial campaign against Jim Edgar. I remember the campaign, especially how excited we were to work for her. We didn't even come close in the general election—Edgar got re-elected with 34% of the vote—but we thought we made a difference. We might have; Edgar and his successor, George Ryan, were moderate Republicans who resisted the creeping Christianism of their parties.

She will be missed. If Illinois native Hillary Clinton gets nominated for president in 2016, she can, in part, thank Netsch for the example.

I'm just a day from losing my mind (or "loosing," to all you Facebookers out there), a day from my workload returning to normal levels, and a day from deploying Weather Now to a test instance in Azure. Then, maybe, I'll have time to take all these in:

• Andrew Mason got fired from his billion-dollar CEO job at Groupon.
• Because of human-caused climate change, the National Aeronautic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) will start mapping more of the ice-free arctic soon.
• WBEZ wonders if our recent snow is helping our drought; Illinois state climatologist Jim Angel weighs in as well.
• Air New Zealand has a new safety video.
• Antje Duvekot has a new song out.

Watch this space for a sneak preview of Weather Now 4.0, possibly tomorrow. The GetWeather utility has run with only minor hitches for a week, and with two more (quick) bug fixes it's ready for production. That just leaves about 6 hours of work to move the ASP.NET application up to Azure...and then, you get to beta test it. If all goes well I'll cut over to Azure on the 9th or 10th, and finally—finally!—retire my last two servers.

Flying out of O'Hare yesterday we passed this unhappy specimen:

The 787 Dreamliner has been there over a month now, having gotten stuck in Chicago when the difficulties started. (I've actually been through O'Hare five times since it got stranded, but yesterday was the first time my airplane took off from 22L, giving me a close enough look to snap a photo.)

The Cranky Flier gives American and USAirways advice following their Valentines Day announcement of corporate nuptials:

Get Rid of the Old American
Sure, technically everyone who works at American today is part of the old American, but that’s not what I mean. There are key people – and processes – that epitomize the old American and those need to be swept out quickly. If these folks don’t see the writing on the wall, then the new management team needs to act. Number one on that list is, of course, Tom Horton, but they can’t officially sweep him out because he had to stay on as part of the deal as Non-Executive Chairman. But really, he needs to become Non-Existent Chairman. From the looks of this deal, he won’t be around much and it won’t be for very long.

But it’s not just Horton. There are others at the top who will remain nameless that need to go. At the same time, there are some really great VPs that the new management team needs to woo to keep them onboard. The culture of the new American will start at the top, so the people up there need to be in place sooner rather than later and they need to really focus on solidifying the new combined culture.

Protect the Brand Assets
As things churn forward, American needs to be sure to protect its brand assets. None is bigger than AAdvantage, one of the best frequent flier programs out there. The temptation is always there to devalue it, but American as a brand has been devalued for years, and people are going to be tempted to flee during the prospect of another tough merger. So if you’re American, you need to focus on the things that really have strong value, and AAdvantage is one of them. Use the program to bring people back to the airline.

I'll be watching this closely, of course. Over the next five days I have three American flight segments; you can bet I'll be talking to the FAs and pilots.

Also worth a look: Crain's analyzes how the deal affects Chicago.

It's official:

The boards of American Airlines parent AMR Corp. and US Airways Group late Wednesday separately voted to approve a merger that would create the world's largest airline, The Wall Street Journal reports.

"The merger will be formally announced early Thursday morning. Under the all-stock deal's terms, American's creditors would own 72% of the combined airline, and US Airways shareholders the balance," the Journal writes.

"Under the all-stock deal's terms, American's creditors would own 72% of the combined airline, and US Airways shareholders the balance. US Airways Chief Executive Doug Parker will run the combined company as chief executive. AMR CEO Tom Horton will serve as nonexecutive board chairman, likely until the spring or summer of 2014, the time of the new company's first annual meeting after American emerges from bankruptcy protection . . . The airline will likely have a market capitalization exceeding $10 billion, and the value could approach $11 billion."

Yay! My frequent flier miles are saved! Oh, and so are jobs, and revenue in Chicago.

This is alarming:

A new and worrisome benchmark has been reached with the announcement Tuesday by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that Lakes Michigan and Huron have dipped to new record lows. It’s been a 14 year journey. That’s how long water levels have been below historic averages--the most extended run of below normal water levels in the 95 year record of Great Lakes dating back to 1918.

The numbers are as stunning as they are disturbing with serious implications to shipping interests, all manner of creatures which populate the lakes, plus the millions who enjoy these natural treasures recreationally and depend on them as a source of water.

Water levels have fallen 1.9 m from the record highs established in October 1986 and currently sit at levels 735 mm below the long term average. Lake Michigan's water level is 430 mm lower than a year ago

We're getting more precipitation than we have in a while, but it hasn't been enough to end the drought. And because of dredging near Detroit, the lakes are emptying faster than ever right now.

I'll be a lot less busy in March, they tell me. Meanwhile, here are some things I want to read:

• The Atlantic Cities blog has an analysis of class in Chicago by census tract.
• Seth Godin doesn't like airports, because they're organizationally horrible. Best bit: "There are plenty of potential bad surprises, but no good ones."
• Liz Keogh advocates Behavior-Driven Development as a new way of looking at Test-Driven Development.

I will get to them...soon...

Ho did the accounting firm CliftonLarsonAllen LLP miss that Dixon, Ill., comptroller Rita Crundwell embezzled $53 million?

CliftonLarson in 2005 resigned as auditor for Dixon in order to keep other city assignments such as ledger-keeping after an influx of federal funds required the town to hire an independent auditor.

In its lawsuit, however, Dixon contends that CliftonLarson continued to do the annual audit and get paid for it, while hiring a sole-practitioner CPA from nearby Sterling to sign off on the work, thereby preventing competitors from grabbing the business. CliftonLarson says it prepared only a bare-bones “compilation” of financials after 2005 to aid the new auditor, Samuel Card, 56, who also is a defendant.

In depositions in late 2012, Power Rogers attorney Devon Bruce produced CliftonLarson emails after 2005 that referred to the firm's “audit” of Dixon. Also entered into the record were invoices submitted by Ms. Crundwell supposedly from the Illinois Department of Transportation that lacked an IDOT heading or logo and, in one instance, carried a nonexistent date—Nov. 31, 2004.

“Had a two-minute phone call been made by a Clifton employee to the Illinois Department of Transportation regarding any of these false invoices, Rita Crundwell's theft would have been identified at that time,” the lawsuit argues.

Oops.

Why? Because it's too cold for clouds.

Actually, this is one of those correlation-causation issues: cold days like today (it's -15°C right now) are usually clear and sunny because both conditions result from a high-pressure system floating over the area. Still, it's pretty cold:

A February hasn’t opened this cold here in the 17 years since 1996. The combination of bitterly cold temperatures, hovering at daybreak Friday near or below zero [Fahrenheit] in many corners of the metro area, plus the biting west winds gusting as high as 48 km/h, are producing 15 to 25-below zero wind chills—readings as challenging as any Chicagoans have encountered this season.

The first reported -18°Cor lower wind chill occurred Thursday at 8 a.m. and the expectation is a 40 or more hour string of consecutive sub--18°C wind chills is likely to continue through midnight or a bit later Friday night in the rising temp regime predicted to take hold at that time.

Still, it's February, which means lengthening days, warmer temperatures, and pitchers & catchers. Yay!

With former governor George Ryan's release from prison this morning, Illinois has finally returned to the situation of having fewer former governors in prison than out of it. In an especially nice touch, former governor Jim Thompson is Ryan's attorney.

I guess Dan Walker and Jim Edgar are both still alive, too, so the current count is: 1 incumbent, non-convicted governor; 2 former, non-convicted governors; 2 former, convicted governors; and 1 former governor still in jail. There's a nice symmetry there, yes?

Chicago's normal high temperature for April 17th is 16°C, which by strange coincidence is the new record high for January 29th:

The warm front associated with the strong low pressure system passed through the Chicago area between 2 and 3AM on it’s way north and at 6AM is oriented east-west along the Illinois-Wisconsin state line. South of the front south to southwest winds 24 to 45 km/h and temperatures in the upper 10s°C prevail – Wheeling actually reported 15.6°C at 6AM. North of the front through southern Wisconsin and farther north, winds were east to southeast and temperatures near freezing. Milwaukee at 6AM was 3°C.

Moreover:

The 18°C high projected for Chicago Tuesday easily replaces the day's previous 99-year record high of 15°C set in 1914 and is a reading just 1.1°C shy of the city's all-time January record high temp of 19°C set back on Jan 25, 1950. Only 5 of the 34 January 60s [Fahrenheit] on the books have made it to 18°C.

Temps in the 60s [Fahrenheit] in January are incredibly rare—a fact which can't be overstated! In fact, just 21 of 143 Januarys since records here began in 1871 have produced 60s.

The city's last 16°C January temperature took place 5 years ago when the mercury hit 18°C on Jan 7, 2008.

Ordinarily in the middle of winter in Chicago it would be customary at this point to say "It was last this warm in..." and throw out a date from last summer. But no, this is the new world of climate change, so I can say: "It was last this warm December 3rd."

Of course, it can't last. Here's the temperature forecast starting at noon today (click for full size):

January to April to January in three easy steps...

Even though we've just gotten our first snowfall, and today has started giving us snow, freezing rain, sleet, and icy roads, there is good news.

January 27th is when things officially start looking brighter in Chicago every year. Tonight, for the first time in almost two months, the sun sets at 5pm. Then things start to become noticeably brighter: a 7am sunrise next Monday, a 5:30pm sunset two weeks after that, then a 6:30am sunrise less than a week later.

Yes, this is dorky, but trust me: you'll notice it now.

Well, Chicago finally found out how long was the longest stretch in recorded history without a 25 mm snowfall: 335 days. The official tally through 6 am was 28 mm, which looked like this in Lincoln Park:

It really won't last. The forecast calls for 11°C by Tuesday.

For the first time in almost two years, Chicago woke up to below--18°C temperatures. We last had a day this cold on 11 February 2011, when it got down to -19°C. And we still haven't got any snow:

Lake snowfall across Michigan, despite the relatively low westerly wind-fetch (the "fetch" is the distance over which winds travel across Lake Michigan's comparatively "warm" waters) which is generating it had produced as much as 100-150 mm accumulation late Monday—and more snow is to fall there Tuesday.

Despite snowfall there, all but a comparatively small swath of downstate Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, is reporting sub-par snowfall this season. Chicago, with just 33 mm of snow to its credit, leads the pack of snow-deprived Midwest sites with just 8% of its typical seasonal snow to date--an amount 394 mm below normal.

And we're still pushing out three snow records: the longest period ever without a 25 mm snowfall (333 days, still going); the longest period ever with less than 25 mm of snow on the ground (331 days, still going); and the latest-ever 25 mm-or-greater snowfall (last broken on 17 January 1899—so we're now 5 days past the record).

Weirdest winter in memory, I tell you.

The fun part about UAT is that 38 known issues can become 100 known issues in just a few hours. So, once again, I have a lot of stuff to read and no time to read it:

• WTF is this about a college football player's dead girlfriend hoax? It strains credulity to argue he wasn't in on it, don't you think?
• Cranky Flier examines the Great Chicago Aviation Fuel Scandal in which United and American save millions buying fuel from a small office in Sycamore, Ill., and not from Chicago. The Chicago Tribune has more.
• Law professor Dawn Clark Netsch, for whose 1994 Illinois Gubernatorial campaign I volunteered, has ALS.
• Since the Chicago ordinance allowing cops to issue tickets for small marijuana possession went into effect last July, arrests are down but without a concomitant rise in tickets.
• Paul Krugman explains why greenhouse gases aren't the same as entitlements in economic analysis.
• Ask The Pilot talks about the Boeing 787 troubles.
• Illinois State Climatologist Jim Angel shows how normal isn't average.

Yay, Instapaper!

Now off to lunch, followed by more debugging.

So, at the last possible moment, after much debate, my cousin and I bought our season tickets to Wrigley Field. Great view, beautiful park, possibility of a World Series this year—two out of three ain't bad.

Once again, here are the seats:

And here is the view:

I'm sure I'll post more photos from that spot over the course of the 2013 season. And I may yet finish the geas this year, despite possibly blowing my entire baseball budget this afternoon.

Probably lighter posting the rest of the week. We've got a major delivery tomorrow afternoon, and it's still not done. Ah, software development...

We've had a more-or-less normal 24 hours in January, with temperatures between -1°C and -11°C—bog standard.

That said, we've also had the latest sub-freezing high temperature ever (January 1st), which ended the longest-ever stretch without sub-freezing high temperatures (310 days); the second-most days in a calendar year without a sub-freezing high temperature (354); and the fourth-longest stretch without 25 mm of cumulative snow (through January 5th). More records: the longest period ever without a 25 mm snowfall (325 days, still going); the longest period ever with less than 25 mm of snow on the ground (323 days, still going); and by Thursday, given the forecast, the latest-ever 25 mm-or-greater snowfall (last broken on 17 January 1899).

Meanwhile, it snowed in Jerusalem last week, an event as common as...well, snow in Los Angeles.

Now, with more extreme weather in more places, the *New!* *Improved!* Anthropogenic Climate Change! Yay!

It's 12°C in Chicago right now, a temperature perfectly normal for April 1st, and 12.2°C above normal for January 13th.

This week's spring-like temperatures and the medium-term climate forecast make it likely that January 2013 will be the 335th consecutive month of above-normal temperatures. That means, if you're under 28 years old and lived in the U.S., you have never experienced a normal month.

Sadly, tonight things get back to normal:

Here's the forecast graph:

Boy, I can't wait for the freezing rain and sleet coming in 15 hours.

Ah, Illinois. I got so excited that we could become the 10th state to formalize marriage equality this week, even as I knew we'd probably not solve our pension problems in one go. Nope:

The gay marriage bill seemed unlikely to make it to a final vote during the waning hours of the Illinois legislature's lame-duck session which ended Tuesday. And with a new legislature about to be sworn in, one sure local vote for the measure will be lost as Skip Saviano, a Republican from Elmwood Park, leaves Springfield after an election loss.

Three other local legislators will continue in the new session and have pledged their support of the Religious Freedom and Marriage Fairness Act. State Sen. Don Harmon and State Reps LaShawn Ford and Camille Lilly will back the bill according to a gay rights advocacy organization. State Rep. Kimberly Lightford reportedly remains undecided on the issue.

The Tribune is livid:

On Tuesday, as their lame-duck session became their dead-duck session, the Illinois General Assembly made it official: House Speaker Michael Madigan, Senate President John Cullerton and their Democratic majorities want you to know they simply are not capable of agreeing on any law that would begin to fix their terrible pension debacle. Nor do Gov. Pat Quinn, Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno or House Minority Leader Tom Cross have the means to compel them.

So as the state's unfunded pension liability of $96.8 billion rises by some $17.1 million a day, Tuesday's $17.1 million was especially exasperating. Exasperating, that is, for everyone but Squeezy the Pension Python, the mythical creature Quinn's office begat in order to illustrate how pension costs are squeezing the lifeblood out of state government's other missions.

Tuesday was the last in a series of days when lawmakers of both parties could have bucked the public employees unions that dictate so much of state government's policy and spending decisions.

("Squeezy the Pension Python?" At least this governor, unlike his two immediate predecessors, isn't a criminal.)

Anyway, at some point, Illinois' pension system will just collapse, because no one involved is willing to save it. As Tom Lehrer said, "I'm beginning to feel like a Christian Scientist with appendicitis."

Today is the 319th day since Chicago has had a 25 mm snowfall, tying the record set in 1940. As our forecast calls for 10°C-plus temperatures this coming weekend, the record will just get harder to beat.

Unfortunately, the lack of snowfall is also a general lack of precipitation, so water levels in Lake Michigan has hit an all-time low:

he U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported water levels in Lakes Michigan and Huron hit record lows in December, at nearly two and a half feet below average. Army Corps projections for lake levels have been dire since September, when it became clear that a relatively warm, dry fall and winter would not provide relief from a long drought and one of the the hottest summers ever.

Now the water is an inch below its record low for this time of year in 1964, and continues to drop. Shippers, fishermen, and small-town tourist harbors say federal help with digging out channels and repairing infrastructure could keep the low water problem from becoming a crisis.

The water will likely go back up in spring and summer, as it does every year; late winter is generally the lowest time in the lakes’ yearly cycle. But another summer of extreme heat or drought, and this winter’s woes will seem like kid stuff.

Also announced today, 2012 was the hottest year ever in the United States: "The average temperature for 2012 was 12.9°C, 1.8°C above normal and a full degree [Fahrenheit] higher than the previous warmest year recorded -- 1998 -- NOAA said in its report Tuesday."