September 28: ORD

Today is September 28th. It's the 272nd day of the year. 94 days remain. It's week 40 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 69 and the normal low is 49. The 29-year averages are 69 and 49.

On the warm side, in 1986 the high was 82 with the only 60s low of 65. In 1987 the high was 82 with a low of 56. Other warm highs were 83 in 1979 and 81 in both 1983 and 1995. Other warm lows were 58 in both 1988 and 1997. There have been no 80s highs since 1995 so I think we are due one! However, the forecast this morning does not look favorable for this. The record high of 92 was set in 1953 and the record warmest low of 71 was set in 1971. There's quite an interesting spread of highs over the last 29 years: 60s (10), 70s (8), 50s (6) and 80s (5). The last nine years (1999-2007) have been a microcosm of the day: three occurrences of highs in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

The largest spread of 32 degrees happened in two years: 1979 (83/51) and 1989 (74/42). The spread was 31 degrees in 1985 (76/45). A small spread of 4 degrees occurred in 2001 as the high was 56 with a low of 52.

On the cool side, in 1984 the high was 56 with a low of 36. Two years ago the high was 59 with a low of 40. In 1991 the high was 64 with a low of 36. In 1992 the high was 59 with a low of 41. In 1993 the high was 59 with a low of 42. Another cool high was 56 in 2001. Anther cool low was 39 in 1981. The record low of 29 was set in 1942. The record coolest high of 50 was set way back in 1893. 25 of the last 29 lows have been 40s (10) and 50s (15).

The following astronomical data is provided by the United States Naval Observatory. In Crystal Lake, twilight begins at 6:20 and sunrise is at 6:48. Sunset is at 18:39 and twilight ends at 19:07. Twilight begins tomorrow at 6:21 and sunrise is at 6:49. There's a total of 11 hours, 51 minutes of daylight today and 12 hours, 47 minutes between twilights. The moon is waning crescent, in fact, nearly new. The new moon is tomorrow morning at 3:12. Illumination was 1% at midnight, will be 0% at noon and 0% at midnight tonight. Moonrise (of what you can see) was at 6:04 this morning. Moonset is at 18:06 (you won't see this) this afternoon and moonrise is at 7:11 tomorrow morning (again, not visible). Moonlight time is 12 hours, 2 minutes today. The autumnal equinox was six days ago at 10:44.

The following events are all 15 days away on October 13th: Columbus Day, my parents' 46th wedding anniversary and a brother-in-law, Buddy, will be turning 33. -Bernie-