Chicago's official weather station lived at Midway Airport from 1928 until 1958, when it moved up to O'Hare. As I mentioned yesterday, Chicago's record high temperature for December 3rd is 22°C. Yesterday's official temperature only got up to 21°C, so we didn't break the official record.

A funny thing happened, however. Yesterday's temperature broke Midway's record, tying the official record set at O'Hare in 1970:

The level of warmth observed across the Chicago area Monday ranked among the rarest of the rare in December. Temperatures at 21°C and higher are exceedingly rare in December---it's happened only twice before on Dec. 3, 1970 (21.6°C) and Dec. 2, 1982 (same).

Further underscoring the rarity of such unseasonable warmth is the fact that of the possible 4,405 December days that are part of the city’s 142 year observational record, there have now been just 3 days on the books with temperatures at or above 21°C!

Chicago’s temperature reached the 21°C mark at 2:14 pm at Midway Airport and at 2:44 pm at O’Hare.

Midway’s peak reading was to end up reaching 22°C, blowing past all of the South Side site’s previous highest December temperatures to become the month’s warmest on record since observations began there in 1928.

Put another way, that temperature is normal for September 22nd and May 23rd in Chicago, or December 3rd in Tampa, Fla.

Today the weather has felt more like the beginning of November or the first week of April: closer to normal, I suppose, but still remarkably warm for December.