You weren’t imagining it — this summer was one of the hottest on record in Illinois. Illinois State Climatologist Dr. Trent Ford reported that summer 2021 was the eighth warmest, based on average temperature in the Chicago area. Four of the top 10 hottest summers have happened in the last 11 years.

But there was something else going on this summer that made it feel even hotter. “As we know, there’s a difference between a dry heat and a very humid heat,” Ford said.

He said at O’Hare, the dew point temperatures, which represent humidity, were uncomfortably high in more hourly measurements than usual. Plus, the dew point wasn’t dropping much at night, meaning there was less of a chance to recover from the daytime heat.

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