The Chicago area, already struggling with one of the worst early season dry spells since the Dust Bowl years of the 1930s, was hit with seven hours of 90°-plus temperatures Thursday. O’Hare Airport’s 93° high at 2:46 p.m. was the city’s hottest in two years.
The heat intensifies Friday, and the record high of 97° in 1988 may be on the line. That reading is a far cry from the cool 70° recorded a year ago. Of 28,065 daily high temperatures on the books at Midway Airport since observations began at the site in 1928, only 249 have been 97° or higher.
Violent storms swept northern Minnesota at the periphery of the blazing heat Thursday. Radar scans put cloud tops at 55,000 feet as 70 m.p.h. thunderstorm wind gusts hit Zimmerman, Minn. Large trees were downed in 66 m.p.h. storm gusts in St. Paul.

Temperatures surge to the mid 90s Friday afternoon—the hottest of 2005 and potentially the highest reading here since Aug. 25, 2003. It’s the type of hot summer weather which completely bypassed the area and much of the eastern two-thirds of the U.S. last year. Daytime readings in the mid 90s (or higher) are rare here. Of the 1,827 daytime 90° and higher temperatures logged since records began at Midway Airport in 1928, only 19 percent (or 352 of them) have reached or exceeded 96°. If cloud development Friday remains limited, a few locations may register readings within striking distance of 100°. That’s something which hasn’t occurred at the city’s official observation sites in nearly six years—since 101° at O’Hare and 104° at Midway on July 30, 1999.
Intense heat gripped the Plains Wednesday, including a record-breaking 99° high at Billings, Mont. Other highs included 98° at Storm Lake, Iowa, 99° at Buffalo, S.D. and 101° at Imperial, Neb.

Temperatures reached 90° at Midway Airport Tuesday for the sixth time this year. That’s hardly a record—but it is ahead of the typical pace of four 90s which have occurred by now since 1928. The 2005 tally pales in comparison to the 15 which had been logged through June 22 during the infamously hot year of 1988—a year which was to wind up with 48 readings 90° or higher at Midway and the 47 at O’Hare, the area’s all-time record. Only one 90°+ had occurred here by this time a year ago.
A windshift to the northeast which accompanied Tuesday’s late day cold frontal passage has set the stage for Wednesday’s more comfortable weather.
Stifling heat, the hottest at a number of locations in nearly two years, baked the Southwest Tuesday. Readings hit 117° at Needles, Calif., 116° at Gila Bend and 114° at Phoenix—both in Arizona.
-Tom Skilling