Do snowy winters lead to wet summers?
Dear Tom,
Does a very snowy winter mean a very wet summer?
Meredith Graf, West Chicago
Dear Meredith,
It does not. Broadly speaking, Chicago experiences its wettest weather --
heavy snow in the winter and heavy rain in the summer -- when upper-level
winds repeatedly direct low pressure systems and their attendant
precipitation from the southern Plains northeast into the Midwest. Storm
systems moving on that general path tap moisture from the Gulf of Mexico and
tend to produce copious precipitation at Chicago.
However, such weather patterns usually do not persist for months and months
at a time, that is, from the winter through the spring and summer.
We examined rainfall in the summers following Chicago's 10 snowiest winters
and did not find a snowy winter-rainy summer link. A very rainy summer
followed only two of the city's 10 snowiest winters.