Chicago weather: Record-breaking warmth possible tomorrow
CHICAGO - Chicago will see mild temperatures today, a potential record-breaking warm-up on Thursday, followed by rain and possible wet snow Friday, with a dry and mild weekend ahead.
Chicago weather forecast
Today will once again feature plenty of sunshine and less wind than the past two days. Highs will move back into the mid 40s this afternoon. Tonight will be clear to partly cloudy with lows, not far from freezing.
Future forecast
What's next:
Here's a look at the days ahead.
- Tomorrow: Thursday will be the warmest day of the year with highs of 50+ the way it looks to me. Skies will start out with sunshine, but late in the day cloud cover will begin to thicken up in advance of the storm system that will bring some rain to the area in two separate waves. The first wave will arrive by nightfall and move out of the area overnight.
- Friday: The second wave of rain will hit during the wee hours of the morning and continue into the early afternoon hours. There is an opportunity for some wet snow to mix in with the rain. At this time, it does not appear the temperatures will be cold enough for any significant problems due to the snow. However, a slushy accumulation in some spots is certainly possible, and we will closely monitor that possibility moving forward. On Friday, high temperatures will be close to 40 degrees and, in fact, the high for the day might be whatever the temperature is at midnight followed by falling temperatures during the day.
- Weekend: The weekend looks dry and continued relatively mild on Saturday with high temperatures around 40. Then another bump up to 50° now looks likely on Sunday under mostly cloudy skies.
Record-breaking warmth?
Big picture view:
A record high for Chicago is in jeopardy tomorrow. Much will hinge on how long the sunshine prevails before clouds and eventually rain move into the area.
Tomorrow’s record high is a true oddball. For example, the record for Jan. 29 is 65° and the record for Jan. 31 is 63°. Tomorrow’s record high is only 55° set in 1988 on Jan. 30. If you look at the list of record highs for every day of the year, there are only a handful of dates on which the record has failed to reach at least 60 degrees. Tomorrow’s record high is the second lowest in the record book. The lowest record high temperature is 52° set on Groundhog Day, February 2, 2020.
One of the computer models that I rely on most heavily is called the high resolution rapid refresh. It is currently advertising a high temperature tomorrow of 57° in Chicago. I will be predicting a little bit under that but considerably higher than what the weather service and most apps and point-and-click sources have been showing.
The Source: The information in this story came from FOX 32 Meteorologist Mike Caplan.