In a completely shocking, unforeseeable move, the people who stole leased Chicago's parking meters will raise rates next week:
In an annual ritual that has become as predictable if not as joyous as a New Year’s Eve countdown to midnight, Chicago drivers again will have to dig a little deeper to pay to park at meters in 2013.
Loop rates will go up 75 cents to $6.50 an hour as part of scheduled fee increases included in Mayor Richard Daley’s much-criticized 2008 lease of the city’s meters to Chicago Parking Meters LLC.
Paid street parking in neighborhoods near the Loop will rise 25 cents and reach $4 an hour. Metered spaces in the rest of Chicago also will increase by a quarter per hour, to $2, according to the company.
So, CPM's costs won't change, because they have a fixed 75-year lease. In fact, since interest rates are the lowest they've ever been in the U.S., and since the Fed has made it clear rates won't rise until the economy gets better, CPM's costs are actually significantly lower than they were in 2008. On what basis, then, are they raising interest rates?
I believe my economics professor Leslie Marx might have some insight. I'll ask her next chance I get.
You'll never guess where I am:
This is Chicago in December (though it looks and feels more like November). I tried flipping that photo between black & white and color a couple times, and I couldn't tell the difference.
Tonight I meet the nephews...
As I've reported before, Chicago's winter temperatures have more influence over summer temperatures than the reverse. The hypothesis is that if Lake Michigan can't give up its summer heat in the winter, it has less capacity to absorb the next summer's heat. But in the winter, cold air masses have more capacity to absorb the lake's heat than summer's warm air masses have to deposit it.
Well, if the weather so far is any indication, next summer will be brutal. We're not getting cold-enough air so far.
The last time the daytime high temperature was below freezing was February 25th, only the 12th day in 2012 to be as cold. Yesterday the temperature got up to freezing; today's, tomorrow's, and Tuesday's forecasts call for 1°C. The longer-range forecast calls for only three days with high temperatures below 0°C through the end of the year.
Through March, the Climate Prediction Center calls for normal temperatures:
Downtown Chicago got the merest whisper of snowfall last night; O'Hare, our official station, got enough to set two records—in the negative.
Just 200 km away, however, people got a little more than we did:
The Madison, WI area was at the epicenter of this storm’s heaviest snows. Snowfalls as of 10:30PM Thursday included: 300 mm at Lena in western Stephenson Co, IL and up to 300 mm or more across Jo Davies County in far northwest Illinois where 33 km of US 20 were closed from Galena to Elizabeth due to snow and blowing snow.
Those wondering where the big snows occurred must check out these eye-catching snow tallies out of areas farther north and west Thursday including 495 mm at Middleton, WI—just west of Madison. Other totals included: Cross Plains WI 460 mm; Verona WI 400 mm; Hartford WI 380 mm; Madison WI & Dubuque, IA 360 mm; Portage and Taycheedah WI 355 mm; Grimes IA 341 mm; Des Moines 295 mm; Ankeny IA 267 mm, Ames IA 260 mm and Eldora IA 254 mm.
In Lincoln Park, I didn't get a chance to brush the one snowflake off Parker's fur that I saw because it melted right away.
I'm in no hurry for snow, though. No, I am not.
Chicago has officially gotten measurable snowfall in the past couple of hours, ending the longest snow-free period in history. In the 291 days since March 4th, we haven't gotten more than a few flakes, less than the threshold 2.5 mm required to count as "measurable." The previous record, 280 days, was set in 1994.
This is also the latest day for our first snowfall; the previous record was set on 16 December 1965. (With only ten hours left until the solstice, you think it could have waited?)
Like so much of Chicago's weather, of course, when it changed today, it really changed:
The heaviest snow was expected to fall from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. with wind gusts of 80 to 95 km/h. Seventy-five to 175 mm is expected in the far northwest suburbs, 50 to 100 mm in Chicago and 25 to 75 mm in the south and southwest suburbs.
The weather service says the winds will be the real problem. "We may not get a whole lot of snow but the potential for snowing, drifting and poor visibility is very high," weather service meteorologist Mark Ratzer said.
In its storm warning, the weather service said the greatest chance of near white-out conditions is near the shoreline in Lake and Porter counties in Indiana. The storm warning is in effect from 3 p.m. until 3 a.m. Friday.
In western Illinois and Wisconsin, a blizzard warning is in effect with as much as a foot of snow forecast. Snow could fall 25 to 50 mm an hour around Rockford late in the afternoon, the weather service said.
But this is Illinois. We can handle it: "IDOT was mobilizing more than 550 snow plows responsible for roads in northern Illinois while the Illinois Tollway was preparing its full fleet of 182 snow plows to try and clear the 286-mile network of toll roads in 12 counties in northern Illinois." I believe that number represents more snow plows than exist in the United Kingdom, but I could be wrong.
This caught my eye as I walked to work from the El this morning:
History buffs and Chicagoans may recognize this spot as the place where the Great Flood of 1992 started.
Chicago has had no measurable snowfall since March 4th, 281 days ago, which is the longest such period in Chicago history:
If no measurable snow falls at O'Hare today [it didn't—DB], we could go on to shatter the previous record by at least another 4 days. The forecast is dry after today through the end of the week. The graphics [on WGN's blog post] show the total snowfall accumulation forecast for the next 10 days ending early next Thursday morning. The GFS model (on top) shows a potential of 33 mm during the period while the European model (on bottom) shows a potential for up to 102 mm. Hang in there snow lovers!
A snow-free environment from March 4th to December 14th is more normal for Raleigh, N.C., not for Chicago. Or anyway, it used to be.
Well, my cousin and I did it. We put down our deposit for two season tickets to Wrigley Field. Even though we both prefer the first-base side, we found better seats right by the press box on the third-base side:
Specifically, these seats:
With this view:
Now we just have to pay for them and go to a lot of games. Otherwise, it's back to the end of the line, which now has nearly 120,000 people in it.
It's finally happened.
After 13 years, my cousin has gotten to the top of the Cubs season ticket waiting list. Only a year ago, he was 10,000 away from the top, but for some reason the list got radically shorter this season.
He and I long ago made a pact to go in together. And today, we found out what that means. We have an appointment at Wrigley Field at 9am Saturday to pick seats. And to pay for them.
We can skip the appointment, of course, but that means going to the back of the line—which now has 115,000 names on it. In 12 years my cousin moved up 4,000 places; that makes the list something like 300 years long.
What to do, what to do. I'm not sure the Cubs will have a better season next year than they did this year, and I'm not sure I want to part with all that money. Oh, we'll probably have to put most of them on StubHub, of course, but that doesn't mean we'll sell them. Moreover, we're not doing this to sell the tickets, we're doing this to go to Wrigley Field a lot.
We thought we'd get there in 2015, 2020, even 2025. A couple of older guys, hanging out at Wrigley, watching baseball, you know?
Time to create a decision model...
(Here are the FAQs about Wrigley season tickets. And fortunately I don't have to cough up the money all at once: "Your first payment, due at the time of your seat selection to secure your seats, is based on 10% of the post-tax total for the seats that you select. The first payment is non-refundable.")
Chicago's official weather station lived at Midway Airport from 1928 until 1958, when it moved up to O'Hare. As I mentioned yesterday, Chicago's record high temperature for December 3rd is 22°C. Yesterday's official temperature only got up to 21°C, so we didn't break the official record.
A funny thing happened, however. Yesterday's temperature broke Midway's record, tying the official record set at O'Hare in 1970:
The level of warmth observed across the Chicago area Monday ranked among the rarest of the rare in December. Temperatures at 21°C and higher are exceedingly rare in December---it's happened only twice before on Dec. 3, 1970 (21.6°C) and Dec. 2, 1982 (same).
Further underscoring the rarity of such unseasonable warmth is the fact that of the possible 4,405 December days that are part of the city’s 142 year observational record, there have now been just 3 days on the books with temperatures at or above 21°C!
Chicago’s temperature reached the 21°C mark at 2:14 pm at Midway Airport and at 2:44 pm at O’Hare.
Midway’s peak reading was to end up reaching 22°C, blowing past all of the South Side site’s previous highest December temperatures to become the month’s warmest on record since observations began there in 1928.
Put another way, that temperature is normal for September 22nd and May 23rd in Chicago, or December 3rd in Tampa, Fla.
Today the weather has felt more like the beginning of November or the first week of April: closer to normal, I suppose, but still remarkably warm for December.