Chicago, IL weather
Right now 64° · today 75° / 55°, sunny · seven days from the National Weather Service
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Right now · 64° · wind W 9 mph · 3° warmer than this time yesterday · at Chicago Midway, 9:30 AM
Today, in the Weather Service’s words
Sunny. High near 75, with temperatures falling to around 73 in the afternoon. West wind 10 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph.
Seven days
Winter in Chicago
Chicago averages 39 inches of snow a year, according to NOAA’s 1991-2020 climate normals - a regular snow place. Snow several times a winter, well-practised response. Closures happen but need a real storm.
That is why local snowfall thresholds differ so much from one town to the next: a district that plans for 39 inches a year is equipped differently from one that never sees any. Here, roughly 6 inches in a single storm is where a normal school day comes under threat.
Upper air over Chicago
The nearest radiosonde launch is Lincoln, about 149 miles away. A weather balloon goes up twice a day and measures temperature, humidity and wind all the way through the atmosphere - which is what forecasters actually read to judge whether storms will fire, and how a surface forecast was arrived at.
Forecasters covering the Midwest
Sources: National Weather Service forecast and hourly grid for Chicago (api.weather.gov), updated Wed, 9:11 AM UTC. Sunrise and sunset from NOAA’s solar position calculations. Snowfall normals from NOAA’s 1991-2020 US Climate Normals. County lines from the US Census Bureau.