Cool interlude yields to gathering warmth, humidity
After two days of afternoon temperatures running about 10 degrees below the city’s late-June normal high in the lower 80s, area readings bounce back to about 80º this weekend.
The warm-up gains strength early in the work week, culminating with afternoon temperatures cracking 90º on Tuesday and Wednesday. Humidity, too, will be climbing to uncomfortable levels coincident with the arrival of the 90° heat.
Chicago’s year-to-date rainfall, 14.57”, is a little below normal (16.48”)—but a pittance when compared to the deluges of rain that have swamped Oklahoma and Texas and portions of surrounding states in recent weeks. Stillwater, Okla., west of Tulsa, has logged 23.06” just in May and June, and Gainesville, Texas, north of Dallas, 22.43” in the same period. Computer forecasts promise no relief for those waterlogged areas. An upper-level storm system stalled there, remains in place through the weekend.
--By Richard Koeneman, WGN Weather Center Meteorologist