Cloudy and dreary—but it could be worse
When damp and mild air rolls across Chicagoland at this time of the year, it is usually attended by extensive cloudiness, fog and rain. It’s the price we pay when winter temperatures climb 10-15 degrees above normal.
History tells us that Chicago’s readings climb into the 40s on only about one day in four during the first week of January, and so Sunday’s and Monday’s highs in the low and mid 40s constitute an early-January bargain. But it won’t last.
Cold air returns in earnest later this week, and temperatures plunge 30 degrees to levels that will run as far below normal by Saturday as they are above normal today.
Elsewhere, the weather is causing life-threatening troubles ranging from flooding rains (and massive mountain snows) across California, Oregon and Nevada to warm, desiccating winds across Texas and Oklahoma that have set the stage for grassland fire emergencies.