Remember that bit about our unusually warm autumn? Meteorological winter began yesterday, leaving no doubt of its arrival:
Chicagoans shivered through the coldest December open in 27 years Wednesday. The day's biting 48 to 56 km/h gusts generated wind chills which ranged from single digits to the mid teens [Fahrenheit] as bursts of snowfall dusted the ground and produced the city's first measurable (3 mm) accumulations at Midway and O'Hare. The snowfall generated patches of black ice which led to a number of traffic accidents on I-65 while wrecks forced state police to close of sections of I-69 north of Indianapolis for a time.
Wednesday's -3°C high was not only the coldest to occur this fall, it was 7°C below normal and nearly 16°C colder than the month's 13°C open a year ago. Not since the -4°C high Dec. 1, 1983 has a December opened any colder here. It's interesting to note that the month which followed produced a -32°C Christmas Eve low temperature.
Over at Inner Drive Technology WHQ, we'll get to experience the cold weather in an extra-special way when guys come to replace half of our windows. They were scheduled to do it back in October, but, wouldn't you know, they were waiting on their suppliers...