City has coolest start to October in 22 years

Chicago Tribune

Not since 1987 have the opening 13 days of October been this chilly. The month is running more than 9 degrees below long-term average and 7 degrees cooler than the same period last year.

It's a temperature trend that suggests home heating here is running at a pace 70 percent above the 30-year average and 80 percent ahead of last October.

The mercury struggled to hit 48 degrees Monday -- a far cry from the summerlike 84 recorded a year earlier -- becoming the third consecutive day Chicago's high temperature failed to get out of the 40s.

In only four years have three back-to-back daytime 40s occurred by now -- and a fourth day in the 40s Tuesday would become an early-season first, having never occurred in official weather observations kept here since 1871.