Anthea Halpryn pulls her kayak through the mud at Oak Spring Road Canoe Launch in Libertyville and into the shallow Des Plaines River on May 18, 2023. “We ended up placing plywood over the mud the day before the (Des Plaines River Canoe & Kayak Marathon),” said Jim Pechous, who scouted the water level for safety concerns. (Jim Pechous)
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.”
More here.
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