The month ended with Chicago Midway reporting its warmest July ever, while our official O'Hare station had the second-hottest ever:
Of all the summers on the books over Chicago's official observational record dating back to 1871, only the 1921 season managed a temperature higher than the 25.3°C reading on the books to date this year. That makes this the warmest opening two-thirds of a meteorological summer season here in 91 years.
The bleak rainfall situation continues across the area as this year's drought worsens. At 116 mm, this summer's rain tally ranks 23rd driest of the 142 years to which we can compare it.
And it's not over; the Climate Prediction Center published this map yesterday:
The good news is, we'll probably have a warm autumn, too...