By Patrick Boylan
Enjoy Indian Summer. That’s the period we’re in now.
The winter will be warmer and wetter. Credit: National Weather Service
Our resident weatherman Tom Vollman said we are officially in a true Indian Summer. Indian Summer is a period of moderate weather that happens after the first freeze.
Ravenswood enjoyed its first freeze this weekend with extended temperatures below 32° F “I don’t think it happens every year,” Vollman said. “But there’s still time for the weather to warm up before the winter,” Vollman warned.
Winter is set by the solar equinox, which happens December 22.
Vollman believes the Indian Summer was named early in the settlement of North America. Native Americans, he said, waited to harvest squash and corn after the first freeze. The period was often a period of conflict with European colonialists.
The Indian Summer we are enjoying could last till the end of the week, Vollman said. However November is month that sees average temperatures dip into the 40′s, so there will be bad days ahead too.
Vollman said we’ll be experiencing a La Niña winter. So depending on the jet stream position, Chicago will experience some warm warm periods, but also more precipitation and storms.
When will we experience our first snow-fall? Vollman says there’s a chance it could happen sometime in the future. (And that statement proves Tom is a professional weatherman!)
“That’s the way the weather is,” Vollman said quoting Mark Twain, “everyone talks about the weather but no one does anything about it.
Related posts:
- Weather will be interesting
- Neighborhood hit by frost
- Was it a frost? Temps dip to 32F this morning
- A Unique Eye: Busy Bee with winter closing in.
There is an interactive map of First Frost Dates in Illinois at http://www.plantmaps.com/interactive-illinois-first-frost-date-map.php