July 1936 – Hot in Chicago

While this summer has been hot and humid, it pales in comparison to the hottest month in Illinois history – July 1936. Here are the records from July of that year at Midway Airport in Chicago. The temperature hit the triple digit mark nine times that month.  That’s more times than for the entire 1954 to present-day period at Midway Airport. Also, eight of those nine days in July were consecutive.
It was also very dry with only 0.31 inches of precipitation that month. A “T” in the precipitation column means the a trace event – enough to wet the sidewalk but not enough to measure.
The second table has the reports from the University of Chicago site. Those numbers show that conditions closer to the lake were a little more tolerable that summer but still very warm. And this was all before air conditioning was in widespread use.

(111577) CHICAGO MIDWAY AP_IL
Date Precip
(in)
MaxT
(F)
MinT
(F)
1936-07-01 0.00 86 55
1936-07-02 0.00 79 63
1936-07-03 0.00 86 60
1936-07-04 T 91 64
1936-07-05 T 82 68
1936-07-06 0.00 92 68
1936-07-07 0.00 102 70
1936-07-08 0.00 106 73
1936-07-09 0.06 100 71
1936-07-10 0.00 106 77
1936-07-11 T 107 76
1936-07-12 0.00 100 76
1936-07-13 0.00 102 73
1936-07-14 0.00 104 69
1936-07-15 0.00 91 74
1936-07-16 0.00 91 72
1936-07-17 0.00 93 66
1936-07-18 0.14 86 70
1936-07-19 0.05 80 62
1936-07-20 0.00 80 57
1936-07-21 0.00 88 60
1936-07-22 0.00 95 59
1936-07-23 0.06 99 69
1936-07-24 T 78 66
1936-07-25 T 94 64
1936-07-26 T 102 71
1936-07-27 T 85 67
1936-07-28 0.00 98 60
1936-07-29 0.00 74 65
1936-07-30 0.00 78 51
1936-07-31 0.00 83 50
Sum: 0.31 2838 2046
Count: 31 31 31
Average: 0.01 91.5 66.0
M = Missing, T = trace
(111572) UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
Date Precip
(in)
MaxT
(F)
MinT
(F)
1936-07-01 0.00 82 58
1936-07-02 0.00 72 63
1936-07-03 T 81 61
1936-07-04 T 82 64
1936-07-05 0.01 74 66
1936-07-06 0.00 84 67
1936-07-07 0.00 95 72
1936-07-08 0.00 95 76
1936-07-09 0.03 95 74
1936-07-10 0.00 102 80
1936-07-11 0.00 97 80
1936-07-12 0.00 89 76
1936-07-13 0.00 91 76
1936-07-14 0.00 96 75
1936-07-15 0.00 86 74
1936-07-16 0.00 82 73
1936-07-17 0.00 84 70
1936-07-18 0.10 81 71
1936-07-19 T 75 70
1936-07-20 0.00 76 67
1936-07-21 0.00 79 66
1936-07-22 0.00 89 66
1936-07-23 0.05 95 70
1936-07-24 T 72 68
1936-07-25 0.00 83 66
1936-07-26 T 90 71
1936-07-27 0.03 86 68
1936-07-28 0.00 87 65
1936-07-29 0.00 73 65
1936-07-30 0.00 74 64
1936-07-31 0.00 78 58
Sum: 0.22 2625 2140
Count: 31 31 31
Average: 0.01 84.7 69.0
M = Missing, T = trace