Dear Tom
My parents were married in Chicago on June 12, 1948, and my mother tells us how it just poured that day, describing it like a “monsoon.” How much rain actually fell on their wedding day?
Mary Liss
Dear Mary,
June 12, 1948, was cool and rainy in Chicago. Under cloudy skies and with chilly northeast winds off Lake Michigan, the high only reached 63(degrees).
Officially, the rainfall mea-sured at Midway Airport was less than half an inch (0.42″), but other parts of the Chicago area received more. The area’s heavi-est rain, while hardly “mon-soonal,” fell in La Grange, where 1.19″ was logged, and on the city’s South Side, nearly an inch (0.93″) was recorded. Significant rain also fell in the Loop with nearly three-quarters of an inch (0.71″) measured at the down-town Weather Bureau office, then located at 219 S. Clark St.
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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.
WGN-TV meteorologists Steve Kahn, Richard Koeneman and Paul Dailey plus weather producer Bill Snyder contribute to this page.
