Dear Tom,
Were the storms and floods in the Chicago area in August the result of global warming or of just a stalled out frontal boundary?
Pete LaLonde, Chicago
Dear Pete,
Neither. First off, it is a mistake to attribute specific weather events to global climate change (such as global warming). A consensus of climatologists is that the frequency of turbulent weather events, averaged across the entire Earth, will increase as the planet warms, but bear in mind that extreme weather has always been a part of the climate, even during cooler weather regimes. Secondly, severe thunderstorms and flooding rains that lashed the Chicago area in August occurred because a stalled weather pattern, not a stalled front, caused storms to develop repeatedly across the Midwest. They ended when the pattern finally changed.
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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.
