[New post] Lack of rain means driest May in almost 30 years.
Barrington Hills Observer posted: " April showers brought the flowers, but May was parched. Until Wednesday's downpour at O'Hare International Airport, the city's official observation site, Chicago was on track to record its second driest May ever. Instead it finished fourth. Yet, the b" The Barrington Hills Observer
April showers brought the flowers, but May was parched.
Until Wednesday's downpour at O'Hare International Airport, the city's official observation site, Chicago was on track to record its second driest May ever. Instead it finished fourth.
Yet, the brief thunderstorm was isolated, which means many near the lakefront didn't see a drop of rain.
Brett Borchardt, acting senior meteorologist at the National Weather Service's Chicago office, says it had been almost two months since O'Hare experienced a soaking rainfall. He noted that meteorological spring, which runs from March through May, was the ninth consecutive season with above normal temperatures. Borchardt likens the weather pattern with one we normally experience in midsummer due to the jet stream positioned "really far north in Canada, leaving us high and dry without weather systems," he said.
Normally, Chicago gets about 4.5 inches of rain in May.
"Drought conditions are quickly developing," he said. "Exasperating the quick drought development is the spring 'green-up' when plants suck up moisture from the ground to grow. We've started to notice that a real 4- and 8-inch soil moisture measurements are dropping fast, with corresponding drops in river streamflow rates."
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