October 12: ORD

Today is October 12th. It's the 286th day of the year. 80 days remain. It's week 42 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 64 and the normal low is 43. The 29-year averages are 64 and 43.

On the warm side, in 1997 the high was 82 with a low of 58. In 1995 the high was 83 with a low of 55. In 1985 the high was 76 with a low of 53. Other warm highs (all 70s) were 75 in 1999, 73 in 1989 and 73 in 2000. Other warm lows were 55 in 2005 and 54 in 1984. There are no 80s highs from 1979-1994. What year produced one? Well, you have to go back to 1960 when the high was 82 along with a low of 53. The high of 82 was at O'Hare, but the high at Midway was 84 and so that remains the record high. In 1976 it was close at 79 degrees (with a low of 57). In 1961 the high was 78 degrees. 19 of the 29 highs have been in the 60s (11) and 70s (8). Six highs have been in the 50s.

The other large spreads were 32 degrees in both 1990 (64/32) and 1994 (67/35). Another large spread was 30 degrees in 2000 (73/43). One of the small spreads was 8 degrees in 2005 (63/55). Another large and small spread is listed below in the cool section.

On the cool side, two years ago the high was 39 with a low of 30 (a spread of 9 degrees). The interesting thing is that on this day we broke a record for the earliest measurable snow (0.1 inches or more). At O'Hare and Midway, 0.3 inches fell. In DeKalb, half an inch fell. My home town of Crystal Lake and the adjacent town of Algonquin received an inch. Arlington Heights, to our southwest, tallied an inch and a half. The previous earliest date was October 18 in both 1972 and 1989. Getting back to the temperatures, in 1988 the high was 48 with the co-record low of 28. In 1980 the high was 53 with a low of 31. In 1987 the high was 59 with the other co-record low of 28 (a 31 degree spread). Another cool high was 51 in 1979. Another cool low was 32 degrees in 1990. The record coolest high of 38 was set back in 1917. 20 of the 29 lows were in the 30s (8) and 40s (12). The two 20s are mentioned here as the record lows. Of the seven 50s lows, the only two that haven't been mentioned so far is 51 in 2001 and 50 in 1996.

The following astronomical data is provided by the United States Naval Observatory. In Crystal Lake, twilight begins at 6:35 and sunrise is at 7:03. Sunset is at 18:16 and twilight ends at 18:44. Twilight begins tomorrow at 6:36 and sunrise is at 7:04. There's a total of 11 hours, 13 minutes of daylight today and 12 hours, 9 minutes between twilights. The moon is waxing gibbous, heading towards the full Hunter's moon on Tuesday at 15:02. Illumination was 92% at midnight, will be 94% at noon and 97% at midnight tonight. Moonset was at 4:29 this morning. Moonrise is at 17:00 this afternoon and moonset is at 5:40 tomorrow morning. Moonlight time is 11 hours, 29 minutes today.

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