The Daily Parker

First, a Boeing 787 caught fire at Heathrow this afternoon; fortunately, no one was aboard:

Video footage showed the plane surrounded by foam used to quell the flames. The airport said in a statement that it was an on-board internal fire, but didn’t offer more details. It said the plane was empty, parked in a remote area and there were no reported injuries. All flights in and out were temporarily suspended Friday afternoon -- a standard procedure if fire crews are called out.

Ethiopian Airlines said smoke was detected coming from the aircraft after it had been parked at Heathrow for more than eight hours.

You can bet that Chicago-based Boeing will watch this story very, very carefully. Their shares dropped 7% on the news, for one thing.

In other unfortunate aviation news, the San Francisco Police have confirmed that one of the two victims of the Asiana 214 crash got run over by a fire truck, but they don't know yet whether she was alive when this happened:

Medical examiners will not release autopsy results for “at least two or three weeks,” San Mateo County Coroner Robert Foucrault told NBC Bay Area on Sunday. Coroner’s officials are working to determine how 16-year-old Ye Mengtuan died.

Police officials confirmed that the girl was hit by the truck in the chaos that followed the deadly crash, which also killed her classmate and travel companion, identified by the airline as 16-year-old Wang Linjia.

The girl was blanketed in white foam emergency crews sprayed to douse the flames billowing out of the Boeing 777, police said. She was discovered in the tire track of the fire truck, police spokesman Albie Esparza told NBC News.

Not a good week for aviation.

Because the world will end if 99-year-old Wrigley Field retains any of its historic character, at least according to its current owner, the Ricketts family have pushed the Landmarks Commission to approve an ugly Jumbotron in left field. It may get approved today:

At the strong urging of Mayor Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the Chicago Commission on Landmarks is expected to approve the team's plans for a 6,000-square-foot electronic sign in left field and a smaller non-electronic sign in right.

[M]ultiple sources say that despite [the local Alderman's] opposition, and barring a last-minute surprise, the commission, whose members are appointed by the mayor, will give its assent. That will leave only approval by the Chicago Plan Commission, another body appointed by the mayor, and the City Council, which already has approved the Cubs' request for more night and late-start games.

Wonderful. I can't wait for a huge electronic monstrosity to erupt from the left-field bleachers next year.

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.)

You can get sunrise information for your location at wx-now.com.

The Chicago White Sox gave up 28 runs yesterday, losing both games of a double-header with the Indians, 19-10 and 9-8. While that went on, Philadelphia beat the Dodgers 16-1, and Milwaukee got spanked 10-3 by the Pirates.

In total, there were 171 runs in Major League Baseball yesterday. I don't know if that's a record, but an average of 11.4 runs per game seems a little high, doesn't it?

But, wow. Twenty-eight runs in one day against one team. That's the super-special kind of baseball they play on the South Side.

Park #25 is in the bag.

The Seattle Mariners beat the Cubs 5-4 in 10 innings yesterday after being up by 3 in the top of the 7th. Because if you're up by 3 in the 7th, and you're the Cubs, you're probably going to screw up the 9th. And here is Mike Zunino hitting the 10th-inning single (with bases loaded) that won the game:

Sigh.

So I'm in Seattle, and I have a couple of hours of work to do before my flight to San Francisco. I need some coffee. Where to go? That's a no-brainer: I am under an obligation as a tourist to go to the first Starbucks:

More Seattle and game photos later.

It turns out, all of O'Hare has free WiFi these days, so I can do work right at the gate when my plane's delayed by several short intervals. (A long delay would have seen me in the club, what what!)

Tonight I'll be at Safeco Field watching the Cubs probably lose to the Mariners and taking in my 25th park. Right now, I'm at H11A waiting for them to clean the plane.

Pretty normal travel day, except for getting out of the Loop.

As predicted yesterday, Chicago has had more rain so far this year than we had all last year—699 mm in the first half of 2013 v. 684 mm in all of 2012.

That also makes the first half of 2013 the wettest January to June ever:

Wednesday morning’s deluge is just the latest to hit portions of the Greater Chicago area in a year which has been producing precipitation at a record rate. There hasn’t been a single year since official weather records began 142 years ago in 1871 which has produced a year-to-date precipitation tally greater than the 699 mm currently on the books.

Meanwhile, in the West:

Forecasters in the West aren’t mincing words about the heat preparing to intensity before the week’s end across that region. They are referring to the impending heat wave as one of "potentially historic and prolonged proportions."

Excessive heat warnings have been issued from Arizona into southern California and a swath of Utah and Colorado with temperatures in Phoenix predicted to reach the 45-48°C range while Las Vegas heats toward 47°C and the hottest readings near Death Valley move to within striking distance of 54°C.

Next weekend I'll be in parts of the country much cooler than Phoenix (in so many ways).

Note: The DOMA and Prop 8 decisions just came out during the phone meeting that interrupted this entry. I'm sure I'll have something to say about SCOTUS in a few hours. Right now, I have to take advantage of the letup in rain and get to the office.

We now return you to your regularly-scheduled blog entry, already in progress:

The monsoon-like rains stalled over the Chicago area today, which will push us past having more precipitation in six months (662 mm as of 7am, with the rain still coming down) than we had all last year (684 mm), isn't the only bit of weather this week enhanced by anthropogenic climate change. Yesterday it was hotter in Alaska than it's been in Chicago since last summer:

Alaskans dealing with unusual heat; Fairbanks' 33.3°C Tuesday high exceeds Chicago’s 2013 peak to-date of 32.7°C to date.

It was snow and an abnormally chilly late spring temp regime which headlined Alaska weather only a little over a month ago. Since then, an extraordinarily rapid transition to record heat has followed—a warm-up which has generated some of the state's warmest temperatures on the books.

The 33.3°C high recorded Tuesday at Fairbanks is warmer than any daytime high recorded yet this year in Chicago. And 90s [Fahrenheit]—in some cases mid-90s [Fahrenheit]—were common in Interior Alaska Tuesday with some 90-degree temps recorded in Canada’s adjacent Yukon Territory as well.

In fact, the heat in central Alaska may accelerate climate change, since melting tundra releases methane gas into the atmosphere. Fun times, fun times.

We've got a bit of rain in Chicago this morning:

UPDATE: 7:00 am

Arlington Heights 93 mm

Mundelein 65 mm of rain

Wheeling Chicago Executive airport 107 mm between 4-7am

Lake Zurich 135 mm

McHenry 134 mm- Most of it falling since 3am

Crystal Lake 24 hour rainfall 114 mm

The rain has shut down area transportation:

Flooding has closed the Edens Expressway at Pratt Avenue this morning and has stopped at least three trains on Metra's Union Pacific Northwest Line.

The expressway was closed around 7 a.m., according to the Illinois State Police. Officers were diverting northbound traffic at Peterson Avenue and southbound traffic at Touhy Avenue.

Here's the one-hour rainfall total from the National Weather Service:

And the current image, showing a line of storms stalled across the region:

I'm debating going into the office...

Won, apparently:

The journey began with Jonathan Toews organizing informal workouts while the NHL lockout raged on and ended with the Blackhawks captain holding the Stanley Cup aloft.

The Hawks' magical 2013 season concluded with seemingly the only result Toews and Co. would allow — the franchise's fifth title and second in the last four years after a 3-2 victory over the Bruins on Monday night at TD Garden.

And like the first title, the second sparked a celebration that began on the ice, continued on the flight back to Chicago and showed no signs of letting up as the team partied first at Harry Caray's in Rosemont and then at a private gathering at The Scout bar in the South Loop.

Last night we had fireworks, a huge impromptu rally a few blocks from me, helicopters taking video of the huge impromptu rally, and a drunken neighbor having some difficulty getting into his apartment at 1:30 am that set Parker off.

Well done, Hawks. I'll have to watch the last 76 seconds of the game at some point.

Meanwhile, the Cubs and Brewers both had a day off yesterday, keeping them tied in 4th place. One of my friends has a bet going with a cheesehead that hinges on which team is ahead of the other by the All-Star Game on July 16th. The loser has to do something public and embarrassing: changing his or her Facebook picture to the winning team's logo. For my friend's sake, I hope the Cubs can stay in 4th place. (Third place is now an insurmountable 12 games away. We're in 4th this season.)