The good news: our cold snap is almost over. Temperatures will rise all day tomorrow and actually get above freezing tomorrow evening.
The bad news: We're about to tie a record for the longest period where the temperature stayed under -7°C in Chicago history:
Charles Mott, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Chicago, said it’s unlikely the temperature Saturday would get above -7°C, which would tie a record of 12 days of temperatures that haven’t gotten out of the teens. Many days the thermometer has registered only single digits and even below zero.The high Saturday at O’Hare was expected to be no more than -7°C degrees.
Christmas Day was the last time the mercury rose above 20 degrees, according to the weather service.
By staying so cold, Chicago will have tied the record of 12 days in a row of temperatures below -10°C degrees, which has happened only twice before since records have been kept, in 1936 and 1895.
Today it was at least warm enough to walk Parker for 15 minutes. But it's still not warm by any reasonable definition.