CHICAGO — Chicagoans are enjoying unseasonably warm weather, with Thursday’s high temperature nearly setting an all-time daily record.
The city hit 58 degrees about noon Thursday at Midway Airport, according to the National Weather Service. That’s more than 20 degrees higher than the average for this time of the year, which is usually in the low 30s, the weather service said in a tweet.
Thursday’s afternoon temperature is also just a few degrees shy of the record for hottest temperature on Feb. 8. The record sits at 62 degrees and was recorded in 1925, according to weather service archives.
The sunny skies and high temperatures will be tempered by winds as strong as 45 mph Thursday afternoon, the National Weather Service’s local bureau said in a tweet. Thunderstorms are also possible Thursday evening, particularly on the North Side.
Unseasonably warm temperatures will continue into Friday, when a forecasted high temperature of 60 degrees could break the record high of 56 degrees set in 1886, according to the weather service.
Temperatures will begin to dip Saturday and Sunday, with highs forecast to be in the low to mid-40s.
This winter’s unseasonably warm temperatures are in part due to an El Niño weather pattern, which brings a flood of warm air off the Pacific Ocean into the continental United States. Experts are forecasting a warm end to winter and an early arrival of spring thanks in part to the weather phenomenon.
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