It seems the weather forecast was correct: The 10 am (1600 UTC) temperature at O'Hare was 2°C, the first time it's been above freezing in Chicago since January 27th, and only the third time since January 15th.
I'm going to go outside and bask in the warmth right now...
I may have had my fill of snow, but Parker hasn't:
The consensus at the play group yesterday evening was that the warmer weather will turn the park into a mud pit, which the dogs will love almost as much. It's still not April, I guess.
There is one aspect of the snow that Parker won't miss, I think:
Poor guy.
It's possible that the temperature in Chicago could go above freezing this afternoon for the first time since January 27th. This is the longest stretch of below-freezing weather we've had since I returned home in 2000. Hey, I like records as well as the next athlete, but I'm pretty tired of this one.
Stay tuned.
I don't know what Parker was saying to Dexter, but it does look like Dexter is taking the kid under his wing, so to speak:
Also, I'd like to point out that neither of them cared about the -26°C wind chill, but Dexter's dad and I sure did. Pretty sunrise, though:
So I'm walking home at 8:15 pm, and I hear Civil Defense sirens. I'm just old enough to find the sound chilling. When I was a kid, CD sirens meant "tornado" or "Soviet missile attack." They sounded for about two full minutes, which I thought was gratuitious.
See, Evanston, Ill., sounded their CD sirens tonight to tell everyone to move their cars, just in case people missed the 20 cm of snow on the ground (parking restrictions take effect after 5 cm of snow).
I also found out, this storm has dropped more snow on Chicago than any other since I returned here in March 2000. As I walked home in my long underwear, thich Irish sweater, ski gloves, fleece scarf, snow boots, and heavy jacket, I thought, "you know, it's not so bad..." Not to mention, Parker is having a grand old time, though it did pain me to see him try to do his business with snow all the way to his chin.
This weather builds character, after all.
Late update: The Chicago Tribune has picked up the story.
The temperature in Chicago hasn't gotten above freezing since the 27th, and we're getting more snow—50 mm so far today. At least it's warmer: for 7 of the past 9 nights the temperature has fallen below -18°C, but right now it's a balmy -3°C.
Oh, who am I kidding? Syracuse, N.Y., has over 30 cm of snow on the ground, which is nothing compared with the 3 m reported in parts of nearby Oswego County. And up in Crane Lake, Minn., it's -31°C, and not likely to get warmer any time this week.
I guess it's not so bad here.
I've seen some rough cold fronts, but in the last 24 hours the folks in northeast Wyoming have had a doozy. Here's the latest U.S. temperature-change map from Unisys:
The temperature in Gillette, Wyo. (right near the big "L" on that map above), fell from 6°C (43°F) at 5pm local time (00:00 UTC) yesterday to -19°C (-3°F) at 4pm (23:00 UTC) today, a rather alarming drop of 26°C* (46°F). Let's not forget the wind chill: with 26 km/h (16 mph) winds, it feels like -31°C (-21°F). At that temperature even Parker's big Labrador friends might stay home.
Astute readers may notice that the ball of fun on the map is headed east, which promises to make this weekend in Chicago a good one to sit by the fire and open the door only enough to let the dog out (regardless of what the neighbors think).
* This is correct; all the numbers are rounded, so the integer math doesn't work right.
That's the 10th St. Beach in Miami Beach, Fla. As I write this the sun is coming up over Lake Michigan. It's just 20°C (36°F) colder there, is all.
Today's Chicago Tribune asks, "Who needs Florida?":
Balmier days are forecast to continue in Illinois over the next few days, a result of warmer air masses flowing in from the west and southwest and the effects of an El Nino year.
While no records are being broken—back in 1876 it was 65°F (18°C) on Jan. 2—temperatures in coming days are expected to remain mercifully above the historic average high of about 30°F (-1°C).
I find this funny because I'm sitting in shorts and a polo shirt by a pool surrounded by palm trees, a light 24°C (75°F) breeze cooling my sandal-clad feet, looking at Chicago's weather report, which tells me it's 1°C (33°F) back home—with a wind chill of -4°C (25°F).
I really can't answer the question "who needs Florida," but I can say the weather's a lot better here than in Chicago.
Weather Now is all new.
We're ecstatic to roll out a completely new visual design by Katie Zoellner. It's actually been lurking as a Beta site for several months. We didn't roll it out because not all of the features from our old site (see http://old.wx-now.com/) are complete. But today is the first day of a new year, which we thought an appropriate moment to finally give Katie's design some exposure.
(Nearly-)Total Internationalization
Notice the flags along the left side of this page. Is one of those flags from your country? Click on it. Almost everything on the site will automagically show up in your country's main language.
We're still working on a lot of the translations, and some of them are tragicomically wrong. If you find a mistranslation, please let us know. We have plans to add a few more languages (does anyone speak Japanese, Mandarin, or Hindi?), as well as to make the site better at guessing your preference.
Also notice that you can now change easily between International System (metric) and English measurements. The site will get better at guessing each visitor's initial preference here, as well.
Vastly improved flexibility
All of the data pages use XML and XSL to provide the data you're looking for. This gives us much more flexibility, and allows us to vary the content much more than we've done in the past.
Take the home page, for example. Each of the sections is independent of the others. Soon, you'll be able to mix and match them as you'd like, or choose from one of the themes that we'll offer.
Lots more under the hood
The Site now uses the Inner Drive Extensible Architecture™ throughout. The Idea™ underpins all Inner Drive Technology applications, of which this is our biggest demonstration.
Stay tuned
We have a lot more cool tools planned for the site, including a massive upgrade of the geographical gazetteer that holds all of our place information and some neat things to do with your mobile PC.