WBEZ | weather

That giant gaping hole on the Southside of Chicago? It may not be a sinkhole after all

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 14:57:00 -0500

A 40-foot hole opened up on a residential street on Chicago’s South Side. It swallowed up three cars and a man who suffered non-life-threatening injuries. Many are calling it a sinkhole. But that might not be quite right.

Anthony Randazzo is professor emeritus at the University of Florida’s geological science department and president of Geohazards, Inc, a business that consults on sinkhole issues all around the world.

He says that the 40-foot hole is actually a giant pothole.

“Unfortunately, journalists don’t like to be told what they have is a pothole and not a sinkhole because that’s far less glamorous,” he said.

Randazzo said sometimes companies that fix these kinds of problems also misuse the term. “Sinkhole” sounds far more terrifying than “pothole” and so they can charge more to fix the issue.

Here’s the real difference according to Randazzo:

Water chemically dissolves limestone, and other similar stones, over many years, forming underground caverns. If one of those caverns collapses, then you got yourself a sinkhole.

In Chicago, a water main broke, perhaps due to the extreme downpour. That physically-- not chemically which is key-- eroded the soil. The result was a pothole.

In Illinois, we don’t have much limestone, so true sinkholes are unlikely. They are more common in places like Florida, where limestone is present.

But don’t be deceived, said Randazzo, potholes can be a real problem for big cities.

“There is a rapid deterioration of infrastructure in major cities,” said Randazzo. “You can expect to see more of this.”

If potholes don’t sound quite terrifying enough to describe the pictures and videos you’ve seen today, feel free to tweet me your alternative titles at @shannon_h or leave them in the comments.

Happy freaking spring

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 09:15:00 -0500

The secret to Chicago is not getting through winter: It’s being able to withstand spring.

Winter might be colder, but big picture, it doesn’t feel that long due to the holidays. You have New Year’s, then Valentine’s Day, then Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and before you know it’s March and it’s spring. Whee, right? Lambs springing about, daffodils poking through the ground, delicious new-season produce, sunshine!

Not so fast.

You most likely live here so you know what happened the first day of spring. Something that looks like this:

And ever since that day it’s been the same, over and over again: gray and tedious, the weather equivalent of an orange you spent a lot of time peeling that turned out to be dry, bitter and tasteless.

What’s irritating is that the commercial world around us does not react accordingly. Baseball begins. The Gap advertises fun pastel jeans. Magazines start beseeching you to get your body bikini-ready. Stores want us to buy fun baskets and bright green fake grass to prepare for a beautiful sunny Easter when in reality you’re probably going to have to wear a parka over your cute spring outfit and the eggs you found on your Easter egg hunt will chip your teeth because they’re frozen. And then you eat 90 Cadbury creme eggs to make yourself feel better and you feel gross afterwards.

That gray sky is just looming two feet above your head all week long, and you don’t want to go outside during your lunch hour because it's so gray and blah. You know you should but you don’t get around to it and then you feel crappy for sitting on your butt in your office chair all day and you go home and it's only Wednesday.

And it’s only March still? We probably won’t feel the warmth of the sun until June? How is the lake simultaneously gray and brown? We don’t get any days off work until Memorial Day? Good lord. Then you start googling the symptoms and cures for SADD.

Winter gets a bad rap. But winter isn’t the season that brings you down and teases you by promising something it can't deliver. Spring can eat it.

Follow me on Twitter @Zulkey.

Misery loves company: What the Forbes survey of Chicago leaves out

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 05:00:00 -0600

Forbes recently listed Chicago as their fourth most miserable city, behind Detroit, Flint and Rockford—meaning that the states of Illinois and Michigan were having bad days overall. In part of their clearly objective calculus, they listed our high crime rate and weather as signs of our happiness deficit—because math said so. To an extent, I can see where they are coming from. If you’ve ever watched the news, even for a second, you know that crime in Chicago is a problem, and our crime rates on the South Side have been compared to Iraq. I don’t have to tell you about the weather. You don’t coin the word “Snowpocalypse” because everything is rainbows and kittens and sunshine. The weather is terrible, but you live through it. The redness of your skin, as you fight those below-zero winds, gives it character.

In most cities, the environmental and infrastructural issues would be cause for misery. But what makes Chicago special is that Chicagoans thrive in almost any condition. When the roads overflowed with snow in 2011 and drivers were trapped on the Dan Ryan, they helped each other to safety. On a particularly blustery January day, we huddle underneath the heat lamps for warmth, bringing shared comfort to friends and strangers. We provide for each other by bringing coffee to our co-workers, who are compatriots in our seasonal agony, and working up a smile, even in the most trying condition.

This is because Chicagoans prepare for the worst. Years of bad winters and digging our cars out of yet another blizzard have made us tough and prepared for anything. Why do you think our improv scene in Chicago is so big? It’s because Chicagoans are always ready to say “Yes, and?”—whether that’s with a pile-on joke, a punchline or a shovel. We're prepared for whatever life throws at us. In most cities, they stay indoors in the snow, hiding as if the apocalypse actually were coming. Here our universities and schools stay open and our baristas show up at 5 a.m., just like always, because we are going to need that extra cup as we brave the sodden trains.

It might be an annoyance, and our students complain when school isn’t cancelled. However, our refusal to cancel is an important aspect of our civic character. We refuse to back down, even if that means putting on another pair on Long Johns. This is what we signed up for.

And even in the most miserable conditions, Chicagoans find room not just for camaraderie but for joy. When the Snowpocalypse actually shut down DePaul’s campus—which, as a student, was a first—students took to the quad and the streets to go sledding. The empty streets gave us unexpected freedom, and we filled them with the games of our childhood. We built snowmen (and snowwomen) along Fullerton, and the truly adventurous even made snow angels in the middle of the road. The act was reckless and could have gotten the angel maker run over, but it showed we weren’t afraid of anything—whether nature or machine.

One of my best friends is from California, where snow is a cause for national emergency, and they don’t share that sense of seasonal community. They don’t have to worry about the skies erupting with ice or a surprise 40-degree day turning back to the dark side by nightfall, when the winter returns to haunt us. The winters are idyllic and peaceful. Chicagoans may beg for a mild season in our worst winters—which we strangely miss during those years when the cold passes us by.

Last year I spent most of the fall season in Paris, and when I came back to Chicago for Christmas, part of me looked forward to the season I had grown accustomed to. The benign drizzle of the Champs-Elysees felt improper in mid-December, as if a law of nature were being violated, and when I returned to see that Chicago was the same, I felt like I had been cheated out of something. This wasn’t right.

When the site crashed for the Chicago Marathon last week, Chicagoans erupted in outcry, but I wasn’t surprised that half of the city apparently wanted to sign up. Endurance is part of our life cycle, and we know that the finish line is just ahead. There’s nowhere in the world quite like Chicago in the summer, as the city erupts in a three-month celebration of music, food and beer. Our hidden communities come out into the open. Every day is like a Pride parade, and even in 90-degree heat or sudden rain, you can’t stop the party. However, without the winter, those months feel unearned, as if you’ve been given a gift without doing anything to receive it. The winter teaches you to cherish the sun. When May and June roll around, you feel as though you’ve made it. You’re here. It’s like Christmas.

Chicagoans jokingly blame the seasons for our high crime rate—quipping that it’s enough to drive anyone off the edge—but they are a symbol of us. Like the winters, our city isn’t easy to love, and sometimes when the Red Line spontaneously sends me to Howard or I’m told the Foster bus won’t be here for another fifteen minutes, I curse that I’d rather live anywhere else in the world. I’d rather live somewhere where our infrastructure didn’t marginalize half of its residents with little public transit, while giving Lincoln Parkers every transportation option in the world.

Would it be easier to live somewhere where the schools weren’t a mess, and I didn’t have to ever hear the words "Rahm Emanuel"—whose name is approaching Voldemort status? Yes. But Chicago is my home, and the city has taught me that you fight for your home. You criticize it when it needs criticizing, and you work to improve it. A friend of mine, Wes Perry, recently referred to Chicago as an “ensemble” city, describing our penchant for ensemble-based performance—from Second City to Steppenwolf. However, I think that phrase describes our entire city, a series of ensembles, coming together to ensure the show must go on. To repurpose an old saying, there's no business like Chicago.

Chicago might not be the simplest city ro inhabit, but I can’t think of anywhere else in the world I would live. It wouldn't be home.

Nico Lang writes about LGBTQ life in Chicago. Follow Nico on Twitter @Nico_Lang or Facebook.

Is there a time and a place for fur?

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 09:37:00 -0600

A few weeks ago my colleague Leah Pickett wrote a blog post about how to stay warm yet remain fashionable when the temperatures dip, suggesting, to my chagrin, that black puffer coats are démodé (I got one for Christmas and I LOVE it. You will literally have to pry it from my cold, dead hands.)

I think there are small ways one can try to perk up a winter wardrobe (I choose to express myself with a pair of outlandish teal leather gloves) but at a certain temperature (26 degrees Fahrenheit), it all goes out the window. Earlier this week I walked the dog while wearing polka dot pajama pants over wicking running pants for an extra layer of warmth. Hat head is a small price to pay for an insulated noggin. The company Sorel has launched a successful campaign convincing women that bulky, furry snowboots are a fashion statement (successful in that yours truly owns a pair of Helen of Tundra boots a few years ago and will wear them over said pajama pants.)

In this vein, I have a theory that in Chicago, anyway, at a certain temperature, animal fur is considered slightly more tolerable.

If you pressed me, I couldn’t argue why humans should wear fur, just the same way I know deep in my soul that humans probably don’t need to eat meat. We do it because it’s enjoyable and feels nice and it’s one of those ethical issues that, for some, is easy to not worry about. When some of us see a delicious buffalo wing, we don’t envision a miserable, trapped chicken and when I wear my very warm fur scarf, it doesn’t resemble a terrified, doomed fox (or raccoon? Or coyote? I have no idea.) It’s a moral elision, where it’s easy not to think too hard about it for those who don’t want to.

But a lady (or gent! Because I’ve seen these guys) wearing a full-length fur coat on the bus in single-degree Chicago temperatures, stirs up far fewer objections, at least in my mind, than observing a fashionable young woman trotting around in a fur vest on Oak Street on a fall day*. The ends maybe do not justify the means but one fur coat looks like survival whereas the other simply is a sign of ostentatiousness. When the temperatures dip, wear what you want: pajamas, fur, a heating blanket plugged into a portable generator, whatever. Then again, perhaps it’s not a measure of whether some fur is justified and some is not: perhaps when it’s just that cold, one is too busy staying warm to have much of an opinion on what others are wearing.

There are plenty of you out there for whom fur is never acceptable in any situation. But are there others out there who let their ethical (or fashionable) guard down the same time the mercury slides down?

*For some reason, fur looks much less strange on older people than it does on the young.

Does the cold ease your fear of climate change? Not so fast

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 05:00:00 -0600

COLD RELIEF -- NOT. If Chicago's cold snap eases your fears about global warming, not so fast. As NASA explained in 2010, weather like this is consistent with a global warming trend. And there's still that record snowless run -- something the Tribune's Eric Zorn rightly calls "downright creepy."
* Chicago preps for permanent heat wave (from May).
* City has official "climate action plan."
* 5 southern cities with more snow than Chicago.

'A LOUD -- AND, FOR THIS PRESIDENT, DAMNED NEAR DERISIVE -- DENOUNCEMENT OF ALL ... REPUBLICANS HAVE COME TO STAND FOR.' Esquire's Charles Pierce says President Obama's inauguration address is already bothering people like Scott Johnson at Power Line, who says it wrought "serious intellectual destruction."
* Obama speech's most viral moment (as reflected by Twitter).
* Seneca Falls, Selma, Stonewall: "A map of human dignity."
* Owner of Stonewall Inn: "It's like owning Rosa Parks's bus."
* Romney's no-show is a first in decades.
* Borowitz Report: Speech gives grateful Republicans "detailed list of things to thwart over the next four years."

* White House staffer on online petition mania: "My God, what have we done?"

MUCH APPRECIATED. Gawker's list of people injured or killed by guns on Gun Appreciation Day.
* Groupon puts gun-related deals on hold, angers gun-rights advocates.
* Carl Sandburg's previously unknown poem about "A Revolver": "When it has spoken, the case can not be appealed to the supreme court ..."

FOOTBALL AND BRAIN DISEASE. New research to be made public today at 1 p.m. links the problem more conclusively to NFL players.
* Dave Zirin in The Nation: "Athletically gifted children see the NFL, with all its attendant dangers, as ... their ticket out of poverty."

TE-ALL INTERVIEW? Katie Couric's sit-down with Manti Te'o and his parents about his imaginary dead girlfriend airs Thursday. How hard can she press when she and Te'o share the same PR rep?
* Archive of tweets for Te'o's fauxfriend and the other guy linked to her digital life (and death).
* Deadspin's hate mail since breaking the story.
* Pulitzer winners analyze Deadspin reporting.
* Guide to avoiding Twitter scams.

A GREAT METROPOLIS. The official poster art for April's Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2) puts Chicago in the picture with the Man of Steel.
* ... Which is appropriate, because much of the forthcoming movie was filmed here.

SOMEDAY, YOU'LL WORK FOR GOOGLE. Google founder Larry Page says his company could eventually employ a million people.
* Yahoo sends ex-employees "welcome back" packages.
* Job posting seeks "young journalists who don't know better."
* 13-year-old news blogger credentialed to cover inauguration.

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Chicago set to tie another weather record

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 15:13:00 -0600

Chicago is set to tie yet another weather record, as Tuesday could mark 319 days without an inch or more of snow, breaking a 72 year record.

Even though most of the city saw big, beautiful flakes falling softly around Chicago last Saturday, National Weather Service meteorologist David Beachler says it didn't count.

"I believe it was just a few tenths of an inch," Beachler said. "So, yeah, unfortunately that didn’t have a dent in this record."

According to Beachler, Chicago usually sees a total 10.5 inches of snow by this time in the season. This year, however, only 1.3 inches have fallen. And with a forecast showing temperatures reaching the 50s by the end of this week, those hoping for more January snowflakes might be waiting a while.

A quiz on Chicago heat

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 08:00:00 -0500

WBEZ history blogger John Schmidt quizzes you on extreme Chicago weather.

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Heat brings Chicago first 100-degree day in years

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 08:43:00 -0500

The wave of extreme heat washing over Illinois has given Chicago something it hasn't seen since 2005: a 100-degree day.

National Weather Service meteorologist Stephen Rodriguez says the temperature in the city officially hit 100 degrees Thursday afternoon. That official reading is taken at O'Hare International Airport.

Rodriguez said the temperature also hit 100 degrees in downtown Chicago. And at Midway Airport, the high was 101.

Chicago braced for the heat by setting up cooling centers around the city. Many summer school classes were cancelled and Commonwealth Edison kept extra crews at work to deal with power outages.

The utility reported mostly small scattered outages by mid-afternoon. And Chicago police were reporting no serious heat-related problems.

Temperatures are expected to drop back into the 80s and 90s Friday.

Weather boosts business for gardening stores

Thu, 22 Mar 2012 13:37:00 -0500

Phones have been ringing off the hook since the end of February at the Gethsemane Garden Center in Chicago. Annual plant manager Carol Rice said the warm weather has had a big affect on sales for March.

"We're probably, you know, doing double or triple what we would at this time of year," Rice said.

As the city reached its eighth day of broken or tied weather records, Rice's business couldn't be better. She said it's the first time in her 16 years of working at the Andersonville/Edgewater store that she's had to order annual plants this early.

According to Boyce Tankersley from the Chicago Botanic Garden, the warm temperatures have pushed up the normal growing schedule by four to five weeks. He said everything from grass to fruit trees is seeing an excelerated growing pattern. An avid gardener, he's taken advantage of the warm weather himself, but he worries what could happen if the region experiences a cold snap.

"I'm really pinching pennies to buy the plants that I am to put around my garden and landscape at home, and the thought of having to go back and do it all over again, I just, I don't want to go there," Tankersley said.

Meteorologists haven't ruled out the possibility of temperatures dropping back to normal, or even below that. According to National Weather Service meteorologist Amy Seely, anything is possible.

"Think about it - we're well above normal now. There are many times in April we have have had a cold snap. I can't say exactly when we'll have one, but it's distinctly possible," Seeley said.

According to Seely, Chicago has seen late spring snowfall. In May of 1907, the city saw over an inch of snow accumulation, while residents saw 0.2 inches of snowfall in May of 1966.

Over at Gethsemane, Rice said she's ordered new cool-weather plants that can withstand temperatures around 40 degrees, just in case.

Abnormal March weather slashes more records

Tue, 20 Mar 2012 16:53:00 -0500

According to the National Weather service, temperatures reached the 80s in the Chicago region today, breaking yet another weather record.

Today's weather has broken a record set back in 1921, making today the seventh consecutive day Chicago has either broken or tied a record for warm temperatures.

"Besides a couple days with cloud cover and showers, we haven't had a prolonged period of seeing clouds, to really dampen or block out a lot of that sunlight to heat the surface, so we've seen really good sunshine, allowing us to really warm up," said David Beachler, meteorologist for the National Weather Service.

To keep things in perspective, Chicago usually only averages about one 80 degree day in April each year. According to the National Weather Service, only once in 140 years of weather observations, has April seen as many 80 degree days as Chicagoans have seen this March.

Beachler said he doesn't anticipate any record high temperatures for next week, but it won't feel like normal March weather.