Chicago Getting Close To Setting A Weather Record
You may have noticed we haven't exactly gotten a whole bunch of snow around here lately. Well you're not the only one.
Chicago's favorite meteorologist Tom Skilling addressed this in a question posed to him on Facebook this week.
Dear Tom,
Are we close to a record for the greatest number of days without at least 1 inch of snow during the winter season?
-Dave Anderson
Mr. Skilling replied:
Chicago's official snowfall records began with the winter of 1884-85.Weather historian Frank Wachowski dug through the city's snowfall data for the 134-year period from then until now and determined that we are approaching a record for the number of days without a snow of at least 1 inch, but we have a while to go. Chicago recorded 1.7 inches of snow Dec. 17, the city's most recent snowfall of at least 1 inch. As of Feb. 5, that was 50 days ago. Chicago's longest spell without snow of at least 1 inch occorred twice: 64 days from Dec. 3-Feb. 4 1905-06 and Dec.23-Feb. 24, 1953-54. Our steak must persist for at least two more weeks to set the record.
Now I can't for sure say that this Chicago record applies to Rockford as well but we have to be close to that kind of drought. All I know is that as a person that hates to remove the fallen snow I couldn't be happier. I'm sure I'll regret this when we have no sweet corn this summer due to a dry winter but I'll wait to complain about that when the time arises.