Currently in Chicago — June 23, 2023: A fantastic Friday.

Plus, Atlantic water temperatures reach fresh record highs.

AuthorAuthor

Eric Holthaus & Tim McGill
June 22, 2023

The weather, currently.

A fantastic Friday.

Takeaways for Chicago's weather:

1. Feeling Just Like July

2. Some Welcome But Not Drought-Busting Rain

3. Cooler Start To Next Week

Turning the heat up for Friday and through the weekend with highs hitting the upper 80s to near 90 degrees. Mostly sunny Friday and Saturday. Some scattered showers and a few possible thunderstorms early and late Sunday with a few showers possible Monday but much more rain is needed to put a dent in the ongoing drought. Cooler to start off next week with highs in the middle to upper 70s under partly to mostly sunny skies Monday through Wednesday. Cooler lakeside every day by 5 to 10 degrees.

What you can do, currently.

Currently is entirely member funded, and right now we need your support!

Our annual summer membership drive is underway — with a goal to double our membership base over the next six weeks which will guarantee this service can continue throughout this year’s hurricane season. We’ll need 739 new members by July 31 to make this goal happen.

If these emails mean something important to you — and more importantly, if the idea of being part of a community that’s building a weather service for the climate emergency means something important to you — please chip in just $5 a month to continue making this service possible.

Thank you!!

What you need to know, currently.

Atlantic Ocean water temperatures continue to be completely off the charts.

These unusually warm temperatures — across the whole of the North Atlantic Ocean — are far outside historical norms. In fact, the current departure into record territory is about 0.35°C above the warmest temperatures ever previously measured. That’s about a decade’s worth of warming, all happening at once.

Such a shock to the ocean is obviously having profound effects on the weather. Right now, there are two tropical cyclones in the core of the tropical Atlantic. In no previous June, since records have been kept starting in 1851, have there been two tropical-storm strength cyclones in the month of June, let alone simultaneously.

This should be the front-page news — with the added outrageous fact that fossil fuel executives are continuing to make our planetary emergency even worse.