With 11 days left in the month and multiple days of 50-degree temperatures forecast, February 2024 may end up as the warmest month of February on record for Chicago.
So far this month, only two days didn’t reach 40 degrees: Feb. 16, which saw a high of 33 degrees, and Feb. 17, when the high temperature climbed to only 29 degrees.
There’s a good chance the rest of the month will have highs in the 40s and 50s, which would bring the total number of days where temperatures reach or exceed 40 degrees to 27 days. The record for the most 40-plus degree days in February is 25, which was set in 1998. Even though we have an extra day this month because of the leap year, it’s astonishing to only have two days not reach the 40s.
The average high temperature so far this month is 44.8 degrees. With our forecast for the rest of the month, that number would rise to 46.8 degrees, the second warmest on record.
February 2017 had the warmest average high at 47.7 degrees. Our average low temperature is expected to end up around 31.2 degrees, which would be the fourth warmest on record.
This February is currently forecast to tie the record for the warmest February with a mean average temperature of 39 degrees. That record goes all the way back to 1882, when the site was located downtown.
The top five warmest Februaries in Chicago are:
- 1882 - 39 degrees
- 1998 - 38.7 degrees
- 2017 - 38 degrees
- 1954 - 37.5 degrees
- 1877 - 37.3 degrees
What about our snow for February? Yeah, that’s likely going to be a record too.
We’ve only had three snowless Februaries since records began in 1873, and we haven’t had any measurable snow in Chicago since Jan. 19. Here are the top five lowest snowfall years for February:
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- 1998 - 0.0 inches
- 2017 - trace amount of snowfall
- 1987 - trace amount of snowfall
- 1921 - 0.3 inches
- 1995 - 0.4 inches
February 2024 is going to be one of the warmest and least snowiest on record, but we’ll see how close the forecast is to find out if we actually tie or break the record.
