The official temperature at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport dipped below 32 degrees Farenheit between 5 am and 6 am Thursday morning. The record low for October 12 is 28 degrees in 1988. The normal low for October 12 is 41 degrees. The record high for this day is 73 degrees set in 1999. Normal high for today is 61 degrees. Today’s forecast (published yesterday) called for a high of 39 degrees, but at 6 am O’Hare’s predicted high is 43 degrees and the predicted high for zip code 60004 is 41 degrees. In 136 years of weather records by the National Weather Service, there are only three days that failed to exceed 40 degrees. An average high of 41 degrees at O’Hare is the stat for November 29. The earliest day to fall below 32 degrees was September 23, 1995.
UPDATE: Chicago’s low for October 12, 2006 is 30.2 degrees, which occurred at about 9:00 a.m. The high temperature at O’Hare measured 39 degrees. The high temperature at Midway measured 41 degrees.
The season’s first snow fall also occurred on October 12, 2006. Thursday’s 0.3″ snowfall at both Midway and O’Hare is a new record, beating the previous record for earliest measurable snow in Chicago on Oct. 18 in both 1972 and 1989.
FROM THE RECORD BOOK … EARLIEST SNOWFALL IN CHICAGO
Trace snowfall has been reported on September 25, 1928 and September 25, 1942. Chicago’s earliest measurable snowfall is 0.2 inches October 18, 1972. Another 0.6 inches of snow fell on October 19, 1972. First snowfall greater than one inch in one day was 3.8 inches on October 19, 1989. A three-day total including and following this date totalled 6.3 inches.
See also Arlingtoncards.com/snow