September 20: ORD

Today is September 20th. It's the 264th day of the year. 102 days remain. It's week 38 of the year.

Unless noted, the following data is based upon observations collected by the National Weather Service, Chicago, at O'Hare International Airport (ORD) between November 1978 and last year. Observations have been official at O'Hare since Thursday, January 17, 1980.

According to the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC), the normal high is 72 and the normal low is 52. The 29-year averages are 72 and 51.

On the hot side, in 1980 the high was the only 90s and near-record high of 90 (record is 91 set in 1931) with a low of 67. In 1998 the high was 86 with a low of 65. Other warm highs include 85 in 1994, 84 in 1985 and 83 in 2005. Other warm lows were 62 in 2002 and 60 last year. The record warmest low of 73 was set the same year as the record high: 1931. 23 of the 29 highs have been 60s (12) and 70s (11).

The large spreads (differences of 30 degrees or more between the daily high and low) were: 34 degrees in 1983 (78/44), 33 degrees in 1980 (90/67), 31 degrees in 1979 (79/48) and 30 degrees in 2003 (71/41).

On the cool side, in 1991 the high was 60 with the only 30s and record low of 36. In 1982 the only 50s high of 55 with a low of 43 occurred. Two years ago the high was 62 with a low of 42. Another cool high was 60 in 1995. Another cool low was 41 in 2003. The record coolest high of 52 occurred in 1901. 24 of the last 29 lows have been in the 50s (15) and 40s (9).

The following astronomical data is provided by the United States Naval Observatory. In Crystal Lake, twilight begins at 6:11 and sunrise is at 6:39. Sunset is at 18:53 and twilight ends at 19:21. Twilight begins tomorrow at 6:12 and sunrise is at 6:40. There's a total of 12 hours, 14 minutes of daylight today and 13 hours, 10 minutes between twilights. The moon is waning gibbous. Illumination was 72% at midnight, will be 67% at noon and 61% at midnight tonight. Moonset is at 13:05 this afternoon and moonrise is at 21:51 tonight. Moonlight time is 15 hours, 14 minutes today.

The following events are all 23 days away on October 13th: Columbus Day, my parents' 46th wedding anniversary and a brother-in-law, Buddy, will be turning 33. -Bernie-