At Itasca`s annual Winterfest event on Sunday, a lot of the scheduled activities had to be canceled simply because of a lack of winter.
And ice skaters found the edges slushy Monday on the Daley Bicentennial Plaza, even though underground machinery can keep the rink functional in overcast weather of up to 50 degrees.
Hey, that groundhog must know something after all.
On Monday, the temperature crept up to 50 degrees at O`Hare International Airport by 3 p.m. All during the day, under bright blue skies, sidewalk strollers switched from goose down to shirt sleeves to get a jump on spring.
A few nice days, of course, do not signal the end of winter, but Chicago- area residents, after enduring a particularly vicious slash of winter in mid-December, have been coasting for most of 1990.
Children at the Itasca Winterfest were asked to use their imaginations, as in: Pretend it`s winter and that the wagons you`re riding are sleighs gliding over snowy streets.
”We had to modify some things,” said Margo Method, the district`s recreation supervisor. But, on things such as the snowman-building contest, they didn`t have a chance and canceled it. ”We didn`t know how to modify that.”
And, she added, ”Cross-country skiing was a no-go.”
The Forest Preserve District of Du Page County also hasn`t had much of a cross-country skiing season. Spokesman Sam Otis said that he believed that all the morning nature ski tours and evening starlight ski tours have been canceled so far this winter.
”I`ve been told there have been skiers out for the brief times there`s been snow,” Otis said. ”But, unfortunately, we haven`t had much luck with the weather.”
More Top Picks Best Fidget Toys For Autism
The Du Page Forest Preserve District`s traditional ice-cutting event at Kline Creek Farm near West Chicago also looks unsalvagable. Usually held in February, the ice harvesting isn`t possible because the lake used for the cutting isn`t frozen.
Otis noted that the event could have been held ”earlier in the year when it was bitter cold; there was plenty of ice. . . . It`s depresssing.”
But whether the temperature is 30 degrees or zero, it is still uncomfortable when the street is your only home, and the reasonably moderate January weather has had no noticeable effect on area shelters for the homeless.
”I don`t think the weather affects the use of shelters,” said Pam Gallagher, administrative assistant with Du Page Public Action to Deliver Shelter (PADS). ”The homeless still come for the meals, showers and laundry facilities.”
In Chicago, Julia Goode, housing organizer with the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, agreed that weather is not the biggest factor in her organization. Goode said there are 150 shelters throughout the city for Chicago`s estimated 40,000 homeless people.
”Those shelters are filled each night to capacity,” she said.
Over at the Peoples Gas Company, where a rise of a degree or so in temperature can translate to thousands of dollars on the cash register, officials there were saying this has been one of the mildest midwinters in recent history.
”We`ve come to realize that we swing with the weather,” said Ed Joyce, a gas company spokesman. ”We could get another cold spell, but I don`t think that we`ll catch up.”
From Dec. 14 through Dec. 24, daily low temperatures all were less than 5 degrees, and on Dec. 21, the temperature plunged to 14 below zero-the coldest day of the winter season so far.
But it`s been uphill ever since. Last month, for instance, the coldest reading was 12 degrees on Jan. 26, compared with the warmest day of 57 degrees on Jan. 16.
Snowfall this winter season has been slightly over 19 inches, according to the United States Weather Service, and that amounts to just about half of the normal winter snowfall of 40 inches each year.
Strangely, October, with 6.3 inches, was the snowiest month so far this season.
Last year, however, February was a particularly rough month, with several big snowfalls and ice storms, but if that occurs this year, Chicago, at least, will be prepared.
The city Department of Streets and Sanitation started the winter season with about 250,000 tons of salt on hand, and, now, a week into February, the department still has a lot of salt in its shakers.
Kirsten Svare, a department spokeswoman, said about 50,000 tons of salt have been spread on city streets so far this winter, hardly enough to create the car-corroding, shoe-eating rivers of brine that Chicagoans have come to expect in past, more wintery winters.
But Chicago-area residents, when it comes to weather, at least, are more than adaptable.
The hills are bare in suburban areas where cross-country skiers usually congregate, but at the Zigfield Troy Golf Range in Woodridge, the six tees open for winter use have been attracting waiting lines of up to an hour in the last few days, said an employee there.
Even Chicago-area vegetation, after centuries of learning, can`t be fooled by a moderate month, according to Peter van der Linden, curator of the collection at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle.
”Some spring bulbs like crocuses are coming up, or will come up, if the warmth continues,” he said. ”But, they`re hardy plants, and when it gets cold, they`ll just stop growing.”
There is some concern, he said, about such trees and woody plants like the pussy willow, where little shoots already are starting to appear on twigs and might be subject to damage if temperatures drop dramatically for a long period of time this month.
In general, though, Van der Linden said, ”I don`t think people need to worry.”