Chicago summers are getting hotter
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Even though Chicago's average summer temperature ticked up by just one degree over the last half-century, it's no reason to chill out.
Why it matters: Heat persists as the nation's most-lethal weather element. It can cause acute effects (such as exhaustion and heat stroke) as well as longer-term complications due to reduced air quality.
The intrigue: A recent Chicago Tribune analysis suggested there can be big temperature differences from neighborhood to neighborhood, based largely on the constructed and landscaped environments.
- Based on census estimates, the Tribune reports that Latino residents tend to live in the hottest neighborhoods.
- Also, "more than 300,000 people live in areas where average summer surface temperatures are hotter than 90% of the rest of Chicago, or an estimated five to 10 degrees warmer than the city average."
Zoom out: An analysis from research group Climate Central shows that rising temperatures are not unusual, Axios' Alex Fitzpatrick and Tory Lysik report.
- From 1970 to 2022, summer temperatures rose by 2.4°F on average across nearly 230 locations — 95% of the locations the group analyzed.
State of play: You don't have to go back to 1995 to see how deadly heat can be. Just last year, three women died in a Rogers Park apartment building during the June heatwave.
- This prompted Ald. Maria Hadden (49th) to introduce an ordinance adding cooling requirements to Chicago's senior housing and large apartment buildings.
The latest: To map how hot Chicago neighborhoods can get, the city's looking for 200 volunteers to drive around and track heat and humidity on the hottest days this summer.
Zoom out: The most extreme average temperature increases from 1970 to 2022 were in Reno, Nevada (+11.1°F); Boise, Idaho (+5.8°F); Las Vegas (+5.8°F); Salt Lake City (+5.5°F); and El Paso, Texas (+5.3°F), per Climate Central.
- Last year was the warmest summer in that timeframe for Salt Lake City, San Antonio and Tampa Bay.
What's next: Cities nationwide are hiring "chief heat officers" to oversee efforts to mitigate urban heat, as Axios' Jennifer A. Kingson has reported, including the use of "smart surfaces" and increasing tree cover (and thus shade).