severe outbreak (apology) + record February and winter

Happy Spring 2017 to everyone.

 

First off, an apology. I was out of town for a few days and then yesterday I was on an airplane from early afternoon through early evening. So I knew there was some severe risk going into that time period, but we were on the very marginal northern edge of the area of concern, and there was no formal watch, and I had very little time to watch the development (with no way to monitor it) etc. etc. So I thought less would be more and I didn’t send anything around. My apologies for going AWOL during what turned out to be a significant and unfortunately tragic severe weather outbreak.

 

As you may know, there were several tornadoes about 50-125 miles WSW of Chicago yesterday, and at least one fatality resulted. That horrible loss of life also coincides with the only documented tornado in northern Illinois during the month of February.

 

And with last night’s severe storms we also closed the books on meteorological winter. Some highlights:

 

• We set an all-time record by recording only 0.6” of snow and recording zero days of >1” of snow cover in the Jan-Feb period. It was a truly historic and almost unthinkable snow drought. (And one that looked pretty unlikely to some after the first two weeks of December opened cold and snowy. I’d also point back to the “forecast” in the Farmer’s Almanac that called for an especially cold and snowy winter in the area.)
• We’ve never had more 70-degree temps in February than in any prior February.
• We produced the longest string of consecutive 60-deg temps during any winter period.
• We set the record for the the longest string of days in a winter season to have failed to produce a single 1" snow (12/17/16 through 2/28/17).
• We officially had the 3^rd-warmest February on record (just two years after tying the coldest-ever February) and Midway had its all-time warmest February since opening in 1928.
• We finished well above average in temperature and below average in snowfall for the Dec-Feb period.

 

And despite today’s flurries the mid-range forecast is mild. Temps will average near- to above-average for the next week or so, and the weekend looks nice (sunny with temps in the 50s to near 60).

 

More from yesterday’s storms below:

 

 

https://twitter.com/ABC/status/836928261833707520/video/1

 

 

 

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