June -Warm, Dry in Illinois

Temperature: June in Illinois ended up being warmer and drier than normal for most of the state. The statewide average temperature was 74.8 degrees, which was 2.9 degrees above normal and the 14th warmest June on record. DuQuoin had the warmest reading of the state when they reached 102 on June 16.

Precipitation: The statewide average rainfall for June was 3.04 inches, 1.17 inches below normal and the 30th driest June on record. However, that doesn’t tell the whole story. Western and southern Illinois were much drier with many locations reporting less than an inch of rainfall. One of the driest totals was at Pittsfield with only 0.13 inches of rain for the entire month. Meanwhile eastern and northern Illinois were much wetter with amounts of 3 to 5 inches common. A few spots were even wetter. For example, the wettest monthly total was Streator with 9.71 inches of rain.

Here are the radar-raingauge estimated precipitation for June 2016.  On the precipitation map, areas in shades of the lighter shade of blue represent amounts of less than one inch. This translates to precipitation departures on the order of 3 to 4 inches below normal or precipitation amounts that are less than 25 percent of normal. Click to enlarge image.

Severe Weather in June

IL_statemapJune was a very active month for tornado activity in Illinois. The red dots indicate a total of 23 tornado reports. The green dots indicated a total of 7 damaging hail reports. And the blue dots indicate a total of 49 wind damage reports. These data are collected by the NOAA Storm Prediction Center. A detailed writeup of the northern Illinois events of June 22 can be found here. Just in case that link goes away with time, here is the PDF file: June 22, 2016 Tornado Event

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