Dear Tom,
We have just completed a spring that seemed extra cold and rainy, but where does it fall on the all-time list?
— Pat Byrne, Hoffman Estates
Dear Pat,
Meteorological spring (the months of March, April and May) has indeed been rainy, but, although chillier that average, it was not horribly cold. In official Chicago weather records dating from 1871 to the present (that’s 149 springs), the spring just ended was Chicago’s second wettest, with 16.36 inches. Wettest is 17.51 inches in 1983. May, 2019, rainfall totaled 8.25 inches, the wettest May on record; April, with 6.02 inches, was 13th wettest; March was rather dry, with 2.09 inches.
With an average temperature of 47.3 degrees, spring of 2019 ranked 66th coolest (65 springs were cooler), and so it ranks among the cooler 44 percent of all springs. The long-term spring average is 47.8 degrees. Coldest: 42.4 degrees in 1982.
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