By Meteorologist Tom Skilling
Two days remain in a meteorological winter season predicted to close the mildest in 14 years and the 10th warmest of the past 142 years
Two days remain in February and the 2011-12 meteorological winter season! It closes at midnight Thursday and is on track to finish the 10th-warmest December through February period of the past 142 years.
Estimates that this season's average Chicago temperature is to come in at 32.6-degrees places it 6-degree above the long-term average and the mildest here since 1997-98's 32.9-degree average.
Cold season's on track to be the first in three decades to close without an official sub-zero city temp
The chances for a 0-degree or lower temperature occurring this late in the cold season are fading fast. Prospects "low" at best. Failure to produce a 0-degree reading would make this only the 13th cold season since the city's observational record began in 1870 to be "zero-free" and mark the first time in the three decades since 1982-83 that a winter has failed to produce a single 0-degree temperature here.
By its close midnight Wednesday, this winter will have produced more 40s than any over the past 80 years
While this winter's limited chill and lack of snow have garnered a good deal of attention, so has its generous number of 40-degree and warmer days. The last winter winter with as many 40s occurred 80 years ago.
Temps spike briefly here in storm's "warm sector" Wednesday, then temps dive and winds howl!
Temperatures are to surge briefly above 50-degrees in an incoming storm's "warm sector" Wednesday morning. This is to push meteorological winter's 40+ degree tally to 50, the first time a December through February period has done that in the 80 years since the winter of 1931-32!
Last winter had logged only 8 days with 40-degree or milder highs by this time.
Another huge late winter storm---2nd in just half a week---bears down on the Midwest; blizzard threatening Dakotas/Minnesota; rain and thunderstorms on then way to Chicago
Northern Midwesterners, fresh off a weekend storm which dumped as much as a foot or more of snow on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, find themselves under winter storm watches and warnings for a second time in less than half a week Wednesday. The latest storm threatens to dump its snow---in spots potentially as much as 14 to 20 inches of it---amid howling winds likely to top 40 mph. The potential that the eastern Dakotas and western Minnesota will descend in full-scale blizzard conditions is real.
Storm a giant wind machine; some gusts topping 45 mph likely here Wednesday afternoon and night
The storm is to prove a giant wind machine, buffeting the Chicago area with the strengthening southeasterly winds within its southeast quadrant Tuesday night. By Wednesday, winds here are to shift westerly, paralleling powerful upper level winds blowing in from the same direction. The vertically-stacked westerly winds threaten to generate high winds exceeding 45 mph in gusts Wednesday afternoon and night.
Odds of warm surges increase with February's departure later this week; nearly three-quarters of Marches see 65-degrees; half see 70-degrees
March's arrival brings with it increased odds of mild days. Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of March's have produced at least one 65-degree or warmer temperature and just over a half (52 percent) have generated a 70-degree reading.
Two days remain in a meteorological winter season predicted to close the mildest in 14 years and the 10th warmest of the past 142 years
Two days remain in February and the 2011-12 meteorological winter season! It closes at midnight Thursday and is on track to finish the 10th-warmest December through February period of the past 142 years.
Estimates that this season's average Chicago temperature is to come in at 32.6-degrees places it 6-degree above the long-term average and the mildest here since 1997-98's 32.9-degree average.
Cold season's on track to be the first in three decades to close without an official sub-zero city temp
The chances for a 0-degree or lower temperature occurring this late in the cold season are fading fast. Prospects "low" at best. Failure to produce a 0-degree reading would make this only the 13th cold season since the city's observational record began in 1870 to be "zero-free" and mark the first time in the three decades since 1982-83 that a winter has failed to produce a single 0-degree temperature here.
By its close midnight Wednesday, this winter will have produced more 40s than any over the past 80 years
While this winter's limited chill and lack of snow have garnered a good deal of attention, so has its generous number of 40-degree and warmer days. The last winter winter with as many 40s occurred 80 years ago.
Temps spike briefly here in storm's "warm sector" Wednesday, then temps dive and winds howl!
Temperatures are to surge briefly above 50-degrees in an incoming storm's "warm sector" Wednesday morning. This is to push meteorological winter's 40+ degree tally to 50, the first time a December through February period has done that in the 80 years since the winter of 1931-32!
Last winter had logged only 8 days with 40-degree or milder highs by this time.
Another huge late winter storm---2nd in just half a week---bears down on the Midwest; blizzard threatening Dakotas/Minnesota; rain and thunderstorms on then way to Chicago
Northern Midwesterners, fresh off a weekend storm which dumped as much as a foot or more of snow on Michigan's Upper Peninsula, find themselves under winter storm watches and warnings for a second time in less than half a week Wednesday. The latest storm threatens to dump its snow---in spots potentially as much as 14 to 20 inches of it---amid howling winds likely to top 40 mph. The potential that the eastern Dakotas and western Minnesota will descend in full-scale blizzard conditions is real.
Storm a giant wind machine; some gusts topping 45 mph likely here Wednesday afternoon and night
The storm is to prove a giant wind machine, buffeting the Chicago area with the strengthening southeasterly winds within its southeast quadrant Tuesday night. By Wednesday, winds here are to shift westerly, paralleling powerful upper level winds blowing in from the same direction. The vertically-stacked westerly winds threaten to generate high winds exceeding 45 mph in gusts Wednesday afternoon and night.
Odds of warm surges increase with February's departure later this week; nearly three-quarters of Marches see 65-degrees; half see 70-degrees
March's arrival brings with it increased odds of mild days. Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of March's have produced at least one 65-degree or warmer temperature and just over a half (52 percent) have generated a 70-degree reading.
