The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Cold front passes to start wild ride this month

The temperature in Chicago dropped 13°C in six hours yesterday, taking us from summer to autumn between lunch and dinner:

One minute it was summer, with the Chicago area basking in the warmest temperatures of the past 22 days---the next, howling northwest winds were delivering an autumn-level chill.

Readings surged to 27°C at Midway and the Lakefront by mid afternoon but were soon on the run with the arrival of gusty showers—a few with lightning and thunder. These initiated the impressive temperature plunge.

It could have been worse, though, as northern Minnesota discovered:

Warmth was definitely NOT the issue in far northwest Minnesota or eastern North Dakota Thursday. There, 80 km/h-plus wind gusts combined with -2°C temperatures to produce a fairly narrow corridor of blinding snowfall. The area 15 km NW of Badger, Minn., topped that area's snowfall list.

The epicenter of the storm passed well north of Chicago Thursday and its heaviest snow had shifted snowfall well north into Canada's Ontario province by nightfall.

And next week, it'll be warm again. And cold. Welcome to autumn in Chicago.

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