Sure it's been really nice the past several days around here... warm sunny days and other than some morning fog, no real weather headaches. Well here's my contribution as Mr. Negativity. We have had only .03" rainfall officially in Chicago this month. Some areas have had a little more, others absolutely none. But where the official Chicago record is now kept, O'Hare, it's .03" Granted... the month is only about half over, but I have no rain in the forecast this week, meaning that .03" is likely to hold for a while longer. So let's just for the sake of argument, say that's all we end up with for the month. If that were to happen, September '09 would go into the books as the 2nd driest month EVER in Chicago, ranking only behind September of 1979 when .01" rain fell. That assumes a great deal, of course. But what IS likely is the extension of "abnormally dry" status from southern Wisconsin into northern Illinois. Here's a link to last week's drought status map from the U-S Drought Monitor: http://www.drought.unl.edu/dm/DM_midwest.htm
The new map comes out later this week, so it'll be interesting to see if we slip into the D0 category. Around the weather office I am known for touting the drought, so maybe I'm over-reacting. But what started as one of the wettest years in Chicago history has sure done a 180!
Mike
