Dear Tom,
When Pearl Harbor was attacked on Dec. 7, 1941 I was living in Sycamore, Illinois and remember listening to the radio reports on the front steps of our building. Was it an unusually warm day?
Betty Lundy
Dear Betty,
It was a typically cold early December day in Sycamore when news of Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor blared from radios shortly after noon on Sunday Dec. 7, 1941. Temperatures had climbed into the lower 30s on their way to an afternoon high of 36(degrees) following an early morning low of 20(degrees). Similar conditions prevailed in the Chicago area where the day’s maximum temp eventually topped out at 38(degrees). December, 1941 had opened mild across northern Illinois with highs in the 40s and 50s for the first five days, but colder weather moved in on the 6th holding readings in the 30s or lower through the 15th of the month.
———-
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.
