(CHICAGO) Temperatures on Friday will seem like a treat compared to Thursday’s bitterly cold temperatures, which broke two records in Chicago that had stood for more than 79 years.
The temperature at O’Hare Airport Thursday morning was minus-8 degrees, a record low temperature for the day, the National Weather Service said. The old record of minus-7 was set back in 1936.
The Arctic blast also set a new record for the coldest high temperature for the date, which reached just 4 degrees, the weather service said. That shatters the old record of 9 degrees, also set in 1936.
School districts in Chicago and across the suburbs called off classes Thursday because of the dangerously frigid conditions, but class is back in session Friday for Chicago Public Schools students.
A wind chill advisory was orginally in effect for the Chicago area between 1 a.m. and 10 a.m. Friday but was cut to last until 6 a.m., the weather service said.
Friday will see highs between 15 and 19, but wind chills in the morning will could dip to 11 degrees below zero, according to forecasters. There’s a 70 percent chance that it will snow and accumulate to half an inch.
This February is on track to be the fifth-coldest on record in Chicago, according to the weather service. The coldest February in Chicago was in 1875, when the mean temperature was 14.6 degrees, according to weather service records.
The mean temperature so far this February is 16.9 degrees, the weather service said.
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