Dear Tom,
My son’s birthday is July 17. I remember a few years back that on his birthday the western suburbs around Darien experienced a huge rainstorm. We were flooded for three days. Can you tell me which year this occurred?
Mari Jo Pollmann, Westmont
Dear Mari Jo,
The event that you are referring to is the record-setting rainstorm of July 17-18, 1996. A series of deluging thunderstorms raked the area from Rockford to western and southern metropolitan Chicago from the evening of the 17th into the early morning hours of the 18th (but northern portions of the city area received little or no rain).
Midway Airport logged 8.08 inches, and meteorologist Henry Yario measured 7.95 inches at his residence in Darien. However, that amount paled in comparison to the incredible 16.91 inches that swamped Aurora, which established a new 24-hour rainfall record for Illinois.
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Tom Skilling is chief meteorologist at WGN-TV. His forecasts can be seen Monday through Friday on WGN-TV News at noon and 9 p.m.
Write to: ASK TOM WHY, 2501 Bradley Pl., Chicago, IL 60618 or asktomwhy@wgntv.com (Mail volume precludes personal response.)
WGN-TV meteorologists Steve Kahn, Richard Koeneman and Paul Dailey plus weather producer Bill Snyder contribute to this page.
