warmest summer on record for Chicago is probably going to revert back to 1921 in the next week, per Tom Skilling. We really have had a stunning turnaround in temperatures since August began. August is not a month I normally associate with cool temps, but with a high today in the mid-80s, and the 10 day forecast predicting highs in the 70s or low to mid-80s, it’s much, much cooler than the July from hell we just experienced. And we have been getting rain, just not enough of it to make up for baking our way through June and July with no rain in sight. Too late for farmers relying on corn crops, even if it had rained enough to make up our deficit, which it has not. Lawns are still pretty brown around here and I can’t remember the last time I saw someone – anyone – mowing grass.

But to realize we are at the mid-point of an August that has been downright mild, with a ten day forecast that’s also mild, made me start to wonder if the drought pattern is breaking, however late that might be happening for farmers. So I went looking for long-term forecasts and found this one from Accu Weather: above normal temps and below normal snowfall for this area for the upcoming winter. Not the best of conditions for the cornbelt to head into Spring with, following this summer. And it’s kind of reminding me forcibly of the winter of 2011-2012, or as we’ve taken to calling it around here “what winter?”

There’s a lot of discussion in the Accu Weather blog about El Ninos and what-not – stuff we’ve all learned to pay attention to, as it can affect the severity of winter in the Midwest. But I’m having a hard time thinking of a thing like an El Nino as a “long-term” factor in weather. Just now I am thinking that the real long term factor we need to be paying attention to is global warming, since experts are starting to note it has arrived, and that means we have to start questioning what “normal” is when we are talking about the weather.

Personally I suspect the new normal means we’ll be flirting with, and breaking, a lot of weather records we’d just as soon not break, on a consistent basis and for quite a while to come – probably for the rest of my life, possibly for the rest of my grandchildren’s lives.