Today’s chill comes on heels of warm March close
Chicago’s meteorological landscape Saturday is far different than 24 hours ago. North winds beneath stubbornly cloudy skies are to dramatically limit daytime warming at almost every turn. The resulting 40s are to fall more than 20 degrees short of Friday’s 68° high at O’Hare and 71° at Midway. Gary, Ind.—where 67 m.p.h. gusts were clocked Friday—reached 76°, the warmest temperature anywhere in the metro area to date this year!
Only seldomly has March closed with back-to-back 70° temperatures. Yet that’s what happened at Midway Airport Thursday and Friday, with highs of 70° and 71°. Since 1928, March’s closing two days have produced 70° or higher readings only six times. The month’s warmest close occurred 20 years ago in 1986 when highs of 83° and 85° were logged.
March 2006’s average 38.3° temperature was a modest 1.7 degrees above the long-term average and 3.3 degrees milder than a year ago.
--Tom Skilling, WGN-TV Meteorologist