BY: WC WINDBAG

This has been a pretty good summer so far. First, after getting laid off in this Obama-conomy, I found my way back to gainful employment last week… Yeah! Second, I got to retrospectively enjoy half the summer in shorts… hmmmm. And finally, I will get to tell my grandkids that I survived the coldest July in 67 years for Chicago.

The National Weather Service says 2009 has seen the coldest July since the official recording station was moved away from the lakefront in 1942. The average temperature this month in Chicago has been a mere 68.9 degrees.

Even in the years before 1942, when the National Weather Service recorded temperatures at the cooler lakefront, there are only three years that had colder Julys through the 26th.

There have also been far more days than usual with high temperatures less than 80 degrees this year. In 2009, there were 13 days where the temperature did not exceed 80 degrees. Only three Julys in the past 67 years have had more days in Chicago with highs less than 80 – there were 18 such days in 1992, and 14 in 1996 and 2000.

We have also failed to reach 90 degrees at any time this month.

Best news of all is that my electric bill is reminding me of last October’s… how low can it go?

It has been a mild summer, to say the least… temperatures across the country have made many-a-child disappointed that the pool was once again too cold to enter. But apparently, children are not the only ones disappointed in the change of weather:

This has been an unusually mild year in Tornado Alley, which is good news, of course, for the people who live here, but a little frustrating to scientists who planned to chase twisters as part of a $10 million research project.

“You’re out there to do the experiment and you’re geared up every day and ready. And when there isn’t anything happening, that is frustrating,” said Don Burgess, a scientist at the University of Oklahoma.

OK, OK… he went on to say that he was “pleased the relative quiet has meant fewer injuries and less damage.” Whatever, we know what he really wanted.

Yes, this year is turning out to be quite a disappointment to those who want a whole lot of destructive wind:

“We continue to call for a below-average Atlantic basin tropical cyclone season in 2009. We also anticipate a below-average probability of United States and Caribbean major hurricane landfall,” they said.

They now project that there will be 10 named tropical storms this season, of which four will become hurricanes, and two of those major hurricanes.

Their earlier forecast in June had predicted 11 tropical storms and five hurricanes.

“This is the quietest start for more than a decade. The last time a storm didn’t form until August 5 was back in 1992,” Klotzbach said.

Look, what do I know… but if I recall correctly from such important films like an Inconvenient Truth and The Day After Tomorrow, this Global Warming… ahem… Climate Change was going to cause unending numbers of category 5 hurricanes striking the Gulf Coast, year after year.

It will happen eventually I guess… just not this summer in Chicago!

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