2011 Chicago-area weather by the numbers

From the National Weather Service:

Warm December: 20 days to hit 40 degrees or above, twice the average for December. The most ever was 26 days in 1923.

Rain total: 49.81 inches of precipitation through 4:30 p.m. Friday, second wettest year in Chicago history

Chicago has had 49.81 inches of precipitation through 4:30 p.m. Dec. 30, putting it only behind 2008’s 50.86 inches as the wettest year on record since 1885.

Heaviest rain: July 23 — 6.86 inches a record at O’Hare. The July 22-23 flood had intense flash flooding with rainfall rates of 2 to 4 inches per hour. The 6.86 inches at O’Hare was a new Chicago daily rainfall record. Total rainfall for the event was 8.20 inches.

July total: 11.15 inches, a record and 7.64 inches above normal.

Heaviest snow in one day: Feb. 1 — 13.6 inches. Remember the Feb. 1-2 blizzard? It was the biggest weather event of 2011 and ranked third in total snowfall for a Chicago winter storm, after the 1967 and 1999 storms.

Total snowfall for the blizzard was 21.2 inches at O’Hare, 24.2 at Midway.

Windiest weather: June 21 — gusts up to 90 mph. Brief tornadoes hit in Downers Grove and Mount Prospect, with extensive tree damage.

Record outages: July 11 — 850,000 ComEd customers lost power after another intense line of thunderstorms moved through the suburbs and ComEd deployed more resources to this storm than any event in its history.

Coldest day: Feb. 10 — low of -9, high of 16.

Hottest day: July 21 — low of 75, high of 99. An intense heat wave hit northern Illinois July 17-21.

90-degree streak: Temperatures were in the 90s for five straight days, topping out at 99 on the 20th and 21st at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport.

July overall: July’s average temperature was 5.7 degrees above normal, making it the third warmest July on record.

— Melissa Silverberg