Chicago summer setting records as heat wave anniversary looms
CHICAGO — Summer in the Chicago area has been warmer than normal, and residents could be in for several more weeks of sweltering weather.
Chicago usually sees high temperatures in the low to mid-80s this time of year, but July temperatures are ranging in the 90s, after June tied for the sixth warmest on record here, 5 degrees above average.
But as the 25th anniversary of Chicago’s deadliest weather event on record approaches, nothing in the forecast looks as bad as 1995.
Starting July 12, 1995, more than 700 people died in Chicago over five sweltering days as temperatures soared past 100 degrees, reaching as high as 20 degrees above normal. According to the heat index, which measures how it feels when humidity and temperature are combined, the weather felt more like 126 degrees.
City leaders, including Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, downplayed the danger of the heat, with his human services commissioner saying that “We are talking about people that die because they neglected themselves.” No City Council meetings were called on the issue, which disproportionately affected poor, elderly and minority populations.
“That was a major killer heat wave,” said Brett Borchardt, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. “We’re not quite to that level. But it is a little unusual to be this warm, this long, this early in the year.”
In contrast, Chicago’s temperatures this year have been about 5 to 10 degrees above normal recently, according to Borchardt.
The weather service’s Climate Prediction Center forecast at least a 50% chance of aboveaverage temperatures in Chicago for the next two weeks. It’s expected to remain above normal through the next month, Borchardt said.
“Above average by itself may not be indicative of dangerous weather,” Borchardt said. “But any time you’re above average, say in the middle of summer when you’re already typically hot, is when you can run into problems.”
Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications expanded cooling resources Tuesday as temperatures rose. The city has six cooling centers, as well as 50 cooling buses and various splash pads available for residents, according to a department news release.
The city has limited the capacity of cooling centers, reconfiguring them to accommodate physical distancing because of COVID-19, and put deep cleaning and disinfecting protocols in place, according to Rich Guidice, the agency’s executive director.
“We’re keeping a close eye on everybody who’s coming into the facility,” Guidice said. “We’re taking extra measures on deep cleaning and disinfecting the locations. Certainly if we do come across something that appears to be worrisome, we’ll take the necessary actions needed to keep everyone safe.”
As has been done since the 1995 heat wave, wellness checks and outreach were being planned should temperatures reach the warning level determined by the NWS for Chicago’s vulnerable populations, such as homeless people, older adults and people with disabilities, Guidice said.
Climate models predict that weather like the 1995 Chicago heat wave will be more frequent 50 years from now, according to Eric Klinenberg, a sociology professor at New York University and author of the book “Heat Wave: A Social Autopsy of Disaster in Chicago,” about the 1995 disaster.
“I fear that the combination of COVID-19, climate change and concentrated poverty in Chicago will put enormous numbers of people at risk,” Klinenberg said. “My view is that Chicago has been very lucky because it’s just a matter of chance that the city hasn’t gotten the kind of heat wave it got in 1995.”