Events

There's a meme going around the gun-rights folks right now that banning assault weapons won't keep people from killing each other. Think of the thousands of people stabbed to death every year! Just look at this graphic: While their specific numbers are wrong, the basic assertion is correct: Very few people get killed by rifles in the U.S. No, our eye-watering murder rate comes mainly from handguns, which are second only to cars in the league table of man-made health risks in the U.S. Start with the raw...

Today is the 319th day since Chicago has had a 25 mm snowfall, tying the record set in 1940. As our forecast calls for 10°C-plus temperatures this coming weekend, the record will just get harder to beat. Unfortunately, the lack of snowfall is also a general lack of precipitation, so water levels in Lake Michigan has hit an all-time low: he U.S. Army Corps of Engineers reported water levels in Lakes Michigan and Huron hit record lows in December, at nearly two and a half feet below average. Army Corps...

I'm in the home stretch moving Weather Now to Azure. I've finished the data model, data retrieval code, integration with the existing UI, and the code that parses incoming weather data from NOAA, so now I'm working on inserting that data into the database. To speed up development, improve the design, and generally make my life easier, I'm using Entity Framework 5.0 with database-first modeling. The problem that consumed me yesterday afternoon and on into this morning has been how to ramp up to realistic...

Here's the semi-annual Chicago sunrise chart. (You can get one for your own location at http://www.wx-now.com/Sunrise/SunriseChart.aspx.) Date Significance Sunrise Sunset Daylight 2013 3 Jan Latest sunrise until Oct 28th 07:19 16:33 9:13 27 Jan 5pm sunset 07:08 17:00 9:52 4 Feb 7am sunrise 07:00 17:10 10:10 20 Feb 5:30pm sunset 06:39 17:31 10:52 26 Feb 6:30am sunrise 06:30 17:38 11:08 9 Mar Earliest sunrise until Apr. 14th Earliest sunset until Oct. 28th 06:12 17:51 11:38 10 Mar Daylight savings time...

To refresh your memory of the movie Finding Nemo, Dory had a cognitive deficiency: To refresh your memory of last month, so do most American news media: Blame it on the fiscal cliff, blame it on Christmas, blame it on our ability to forget, but the national discussion about gun control has once again ebbed. Mentions of the term "gun control" on television, in newspapers, and in online media are down to pre-Sandy Hook levels, according to the Nexis database. Barring a post-holidy resurgence -- which is...

Nearly 65% of the lower 48 United States has snow cover, including parts of every state except for the seven between Louisiana and South Carolina. Chicago, for reasons not well understood, has just a trace on the ground and has gone 314 days without 25 mm of snow, 4 days short of the record set in 1940. Since we have no significant snow in the forecast, it looks like we'll break that record too. Other records threatened: number of days without 25 mm total snowfall accumulation, 312 (record is 313)...

The 6-10 day outlook for the U.S. looks warm: Forecasters predict temperatures above 10°C in Chicago by Wednesday before the weather cools to more normal January levels the following weekend. This comes after 2012 officially became Chicago's warmest year ever (or at least since we started keeping records in 1871), and during a continuing drought that has nearly shut down the Mississippi River. Well, you know, warm, dry springs are very nice in Chicago...so are mild winters...

It seems I got ahead of events in my post last night. Chicago Public Radio clarified this morning what's going on in the General Assembly: Before it even went to committee, legislators debated not gay marriage, but the process they’ll use to discuss the issue. Republican State Sen. Dale Righter said it’s hard for the public to follow bills as they move around the Statehouse, and the issue shouldn’t be rushed. Senators voted 28-24, in effect stalling the bill. But the gay marriage issue could still be...

House Bill 5170 will very likely go to the Illinois House for a vote before Tuesday, and if it does, it will pass and receive Governor Quinn's signature a few hours later: The Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act is amended by changing Sections 201, 209, and 212 and by adding Section 220 as follows: (750 ILCS 5/201) (from Ch. 40, par. 201) Sec. 201. Formalities.) A marriage between 2 persons a man and a woman licensed, solemnized and registered as provided in this Act is valid in this...

Sigh. Zipcar, short-term rental car service that has occasionally made my life a lot easier, just got swallowed by Avis: Zipcar Inc. has been growing as more people in urban areas forgo owning a car and instead tap car-sharing and hourly rental services when they need a vehicle. The company’s third-quarter sales grew 15% to $78.2 million while its membership (renters) grew 18% to more than 767,000. Zipcar earned $4.3 million in the three-month period and has said it expected 2012 to be the first full...