After a much-warmer-than-normal early March, we've had typical Chicago weather for the first week of April. The Climate Prediction Center still says April might be warmer and drier than normal, but the 6-10 day outlook is just cold.
Today it doesn't know what to do. Walking from the train I got sun, snow, pellets, and mist. And it's barely 3°C.
So, it really is spring in Chicago, but I'd very much like the week we get (usually in May) when it's warm and sunny. Like we had at the beginning of March.
Over the last few days we've had ridiculous weather in Chicago. I will now ridicule it.
Friday it rained and didn't. All day. From moment to moment it was unclear whether we'd get rained on or not. Saturday was similar, but we walked from sun to snow and back, block for block.
Then Sunday it was 22°C at one point, and -3°C at another. The Tribune has a graphic about it. I walked around with, at one point, my jacket, sweater, and outer shirt in my backpack.
Yesterday? Snow, of course.
Today? Sunny and freezing right now, cloudy and freezing later.
At least today Parker will get some good walks—assuming it doesn't rain.
Bonus: Here's WGN-TV's time-lapse view of Saturday's wacky weather.
Yesterday's 17.2°C temperature at O'Hare was the warmest since it was 17.8°C on November 15th. It might not get warmer than that, but who cares, because it that's plenty warm for early March. 17.8°C is Chicago's normal temperature for April 29th; the normal for March 8th is 6.1°C.
That's the good news. The better news is that working from home means Parker is working napping from home as well. And we just got back from an 80-minute, 8.1-km walk, his longest in (no surprise) even more months.
Now the bad news. We were walking from the car dealership where they are figuring out how much I'm to pay them later this week. My car has a couple of "minor" symptoms including a damaged tire (thanks, Chicago!), but it's a 7-year-old BMW. So anything that would cost $100 to fix on a Corolla will cost me $200. Can't wait for the call...
I do have some work to do today—more on that this afternoon. But I'm already at 11,000 steps, with a goal of 30,000 for the day. I've only hit that number once, last April 26th. There's a lot of day ahead of me, and it's 9,000 steps back to the car dealership. Stay tuned.
Update, 11:26: The 11am temperature at O'Hare was 19°C, the highest reading since November 5th. If we hit 23°C we'll have the warmest day since October 21st.
A strong storm system just to the south of Chicago is drawing cooler air into the city from the northeast and the lake. At the moment we have some truly delightful weather: winds north-northeast at 35 km/h with gusts up to 62 km/h, visibility 5 km in mist, temperature 7°C with a windchill of 2°C.
Says WGN's Tom Skilling:
The last time it was even close to this cool on a May 26 was a half century ago in 1961 when a high of 9°C occurred. The average high this time of the year is 22°C which puts the day's predicted 7°C high some 16°C below the long-time average. By contrast, temperatures on this date a year ago hit 31°C—a level 23°C warmer.
In short, it's crappy outside.