On the first day of April, Chicago suffered through bitingly cold winds and unseasonably cold temperatures, seemingly another cold spate that threatened to set temperature records. But April first aside, the Windy City has set a greater Winter record. December to March became the Windy City’s coldest four-month period ever recorded.
The Winter of 2013-14 set records all across the country and the National Weather Service (NWS) says that Chicago has experienced its coldest period since records were first kept.
The weather service put out a press release saying that the average temperature for Chicago since December was only 22 degrees, “which is the coldest such period on record for Chicago dating back to 1872!”
NES compared this year’s Winter to that of years past and found that in the Winter of 1903-04, the average temp was 22.3 degrees, in 1977-78 it was 22.5, and 1978-79 Chi-Town experienced a 22.7 degree average.
Meanwhile, as this past Winter gave Chicago some of its worst conditions in decades, this Spring won’t be much better at least for some people.
Chicago’s conditions promise to go from a “polar vortex” to a “pollen vortex” with an allergy season that promises to come on like gangbusters as temperatures and pollen counts both rise at nearly the same time, something that rarely happens.
“The polar vortex will likely cause a pollen vortex, with mold, tree and even grass pollens happening simultaneously due to the final break in the weather and all the nourishing moisture,” Dr. Joseph Leija said in a statement reported by Chicago’s NBC News.
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