October 8: ORD

Today is October 8th. It's the 282nd day of the year. 84 days remain. It's week 41 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 66 and the normal low is 45. The 29-year averages are 67 and 46.

On the warm side, last year the high was the record high of 87 with a low of 60. The high was also 87 in 1949. In 1997 the high was 84 with a low of 62. Other warm highs were 80 in 2003, 78 in 1993 and 77 in 1986. Other warm lows were 57 in each of 1984, 1999 and 2004. Before our most distant high of 84 in 1997, you have to go back 31 years to 1966 to find another high of 80 or higher. In 1966 the high was 80 with a low of 55. 25 of the 29 highs have been in the 50s (6), 60s (10) and 70s (9).

The large spreads were 35 degrees in 1982 (75/40), 32 degrees in 2003 (80/48) and 30 degrees in 1993 (78/48). The small spreads were 6 degrees in 1990 (53/47) and 7 degrees in 1999 (64/57).

On the cool side, in 2000 the high was 46 with a low of 31. In 1987 the high was 56 with the record low of 27. In 1989 the high was 55 with a low of 34. In 1996 the high was 50 with a low of 40. Other cool highs were 53 in both 1990 and 2005. The record coolest high of 41 was set way back in 1895. 18 of the 29 lows were in the 40s.

The following astronomical data is provided by the United States Naval Observatory. In Crystal Lake, twilight begins at 6:31 and sunrise is at 6:59. Sunset is at 18:22 and twilight ends at 18:50. Twilight begins tomorrow at 6:32 and sunrise is at 7:00. There's a total of 11 hours, 23 minutes of daylight today and 12 hours, 19 minutes between twilights. The moon is waxing gibbous and reached first quarter yesterday at 4:04 in the morning. Illumination was 58% at midnight, will be 63% at noon and 68% at midnight tonight. Moonrise is at 15:23 this afternoon and moonset is at 1:05 tomorrow morning. Moonlight time is 8 hours, 37 minutes today.

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