Tuesday's high 5 degrees shy of coldest April 29
Tuesday’s frigid early March-level 44-degree high temperature fell just 5 degrees
short of the city’s coldest April 29 high—a 39-degree reading set in 1893. It marked
a breathtaking pullback from an 82-degree high just a year earlier and marked the
second day of mid-40-degree highs, something which has happened at Midway
Airport this late in the season only seven times since observations began at the site in
1928. The day opened with a 31-degree low at O’Hare International Airport, tying a
half-century-old record for the coldest April 29 temperature. Suburban lows reached
28 degrees at Aurora and Lincolnshire and 29 degrees at Lombard, Highland Park and
Du Page Airport.
Fifteen states from Indiana to Georgia were under advisories late Tuesday for frost
or freeze conditions overnight.
THINGS LOOKING UP HERE, PLAINS TEMPERATURES SURGING
As Midwesterners shivered, temperatures were soaring in the Plains. Rapid City, S.D.,
and Billings, Mont., topped out at 82 degrees.