Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Slushy accumulation

The current area severe weather alerts span flood warnings, flood advisories, flood watches and winter storm warnings and winter weather advisories. The effects of that thaw I blogged about in early January are still with us while a snowstorm--the biggest one yet, according to meteorologist Tom Skilling--is about to hit. It's 34.5 degrees in Uptown right now with something called light rain snow coming down, according to Weather Underground. Skilling is calling for up to 14 inches of snow in some areas overnight and into tomorrow.

Yesterday, an inpenetrable fog hovered over the city and cancelled almost every flight out of Midway Airport. Today's rain has eroded the 10 inches of snow that fell in the city on Friday. The Tribune's Weather page, always interesting, includes some interesting information today. Here are some of the wacky weather highlights:

-Yesterday's fog included visibilities of 1/16 of a mile and ceilings of 100 feet.
-February's opening days in Chicago have seen a total of 11 minutes of sunlight.
-We have seen just 21 percent of possible sunlight this winter (normal is 43 percent).
-The forecast high in Indianapolis today, 150 miles south, was 60.
-Only five seasons historically have been snowier than this one to date.
-Many communities are running low on road salt, and salt barges on the Illinois River are stuck in pack ice near Peoria.

The forecast in Nassau, The Bahamas, today was 80 and partly cloudy.

2 comments:

arafura14 said...

11 minutes? Classic. Sad thing is, I think you might have nipped Ann Arbor, I wouldn't be surprised if we were still in the single digits!

UptownRooster said...

I wonder if it's all the Midwest that gets limited sun in winter. I know Cleveland can be really dreary, too.