The latest map from U.S. Drought Monitor shows severe drought conditions in McHenry, Lake, Kane, DuPage and Cook counties due to lack of precipitation in the area. It’s the first time severe drought has appeared in Cook County since August 2012, according to the Illinois State Climatologist Office. Unless significant rain hits our area in the next 11 days, this could become the second driest May on record in Chicago since 1871.
Through almost the first three weeks in May, 0.47 of an inch has fallen at O’Hare International Airport, the city’s official recording site. Typically, almost 3 inches would have fallen by now.
The deficit appears significant when taking into account the lack of rainfall since the beginning of this year. Normally, Chicago would have received about 13 cumulative inches of precipitation from Jan. 1 through today. Instead, the cumulative total is at just 5.63 inches — the second driest January through May on record.
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Trent Ford, Illinois state climatologist, says the rest of May and June are “really important” for the Chicago area, in terms of how much rain falls.
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The forecast
Temperatures this weekend will be in the upper 80s with just a slight chance of showers Sunday night, according to the National Weather Service.
How dry is it?
Slightly more than a quarter of Illinois — mainly the northeastern and eastern parts of the state — is abnormally dry.
Ford is most concerned about drought development in a section of the state that includes Chicago:
Relief could be on the horizon — the Climate Prediction Center still predicts wetter than normal conditions to develop this month.
Drought in Illinois
Numerous droughts have occurred in Illinois, with the most significant in the 1930s, 1950s 1988 and 2007, according to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources.
The last time Illinois experienced significant drought, according to WGN-TV chief meteorologist Tom Skilling, was in 2012.
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Could 2021 be a repeat of 2012?
It’s too soon to tell.
“What made 2012 so problematic in Illinois was that May and June were very dry and very warm,” Ford said. “For this year, rainfall in May and June will dictate whether conditions improve or we move toward a more serious drought situation.”
Spring precipitation in 2012 was well below normal, according to a report issued by the Governor’s Drought Response Task Force. But it was the extremely dry summer months that exacerbated the problem. Other contributing factors to the drought included very little snow during the warm winter of 2011-12, and dry conditions in southern Illinois counties during fall 2011.
“March and April 2012 were much warmer in Chicago than this year so far,” Ford said. “That’s important because evaporation this year has been much less than that in 2012.”
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Sources: baiduhai reporting and archives; National Weather Service; U.S. Drought Monitor; Illinois State Climatologist