Events

Welcome to the semi-annual update of the 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 2011 3 Jul 8:30pm sunset 05:20 20:30 15:09 17 Jul 5:30am sunrise 05:30 20:24 14:53 9 Aug 8pm sunset 05:53 20:00 14:06 17 Aug 6am sunrise 06:00 19:48 13:48 29 Aug 7:30pm sunset 06:13 19:30 13:16 15 Sep 6:30am sunrise 06:30 19:01 12:30 16 Sep 7pm sunset 06:32 18:59 12:27 23 Sep Equinox, 03:05 CDT 06:39 18:49...

...to go somewhere else. Yesterday's final, official figure: 208 mm, a full 43 mm more than the rainfall that caused the record floods in August 1987. And it's not over yet.

Today has set the record as the wettest day in Chicago history, and (a) it's only 11am and (b) more rain is coming: Overnight rains that approached 178 mm over northern Cook County broke several impressive Chicago records. 176 mm of precipitation has been measured at O'Hare International Airport since Midnight making today, Chicago's wettest calandar day in modern weather history.

I'm looking for community input. Mostly because of business travel, but also because I have signed up for almost every reward program that American Airlines offers, this year I expect to earn around 200,000 frequent-flyer miles. I need to spend them. And when best to spend them then off-season, in late November or early December, when people aren't traveling much? But where to go? American and its partner oneworld carriers fly non-stop from Chicago to about 95 destinations, ranging in distance from...

What happens when two air conditioners together draw more than 15 amps on a 15-amp circuit? This: (Click to see full-size.) The graph not only shows how quickly the place warmed up when the breaker tripped Wednesday evening, but also how slowly it cooled off once I closed the breaker. The initial cliff-like dive in temperature yesterday at 5:15pm happened because after turning the AC back on, I put a box fan next to the server rack and shut down two of the servers. You can see the temperature bumped up...