Dear Tom, What's the greatest number of days in a row...

February 20, 2003|By Tom Skilling, chief meteorologist at WGN-TV.

Dear Tom,

What's the greatest number of days in a row when the high temp was below zero in Chicago?

David H. Latham

Dear David,

Chicago temperature records go back to the early 1870s, and in all that time, there have been just two three-day strings where the high temp did not climb above zero. The first occurrence was in 1883, when on January 21 and 22 the high rose to only -4(degrees) and the following day, January 23, it reached -1(degrees). A century passed before this happened again, this time over the Christmas period in 1983. On December 23 the high reached -6(degrees), followed by a high of -11(degrees) on Christmas Eve and -5(degrees) maximum on Christmas Day, the city's coldest Christmas on record. The 1983 Christmas subzero spell also marks the longest period of time that Chicago's temperature has remained at zero or below--100 consecutive hours from 7 a.m. December 22 through 11 a.m. December 26.


