DOWNTOWN — The city is about to get hot and steamy in all the worst ways.
Temperatures will warm up after Tuesday and reach the upper 80s during the rest of the week, said Bob Larson, a senior meteorologist at AccuWeather. Humidity will be high, too, making it feel like it's in the low to mid-90s outside.
It'll be "uncomfortable for most," Larson said.
This is usually the warmest time of the year for the city, Larson said, and Chicago will be hotter than the mid-80s it normally sees this time of year. We're not expected to break any records, though: We'd have to hit the triple digits to do that.
With the heat will come more rain — which could be a problem after the "very heavy rain" that fell last week, leaving the collar counties flooded. The National Weather Service has warned that there's "potential for storms to produce heavy rainfall" in northern Illinois.
Rain showers could start Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, but those are expected to be "spotty" and "sparse," Larson said.
More storms are possibly Wednesday night into Thursday, Thursday night into Friday and again Saturday, though, and those ones could be "drenching," Larson said.
The rainfall amounts could vary widely across the city, but there's the potential for several inches to fall over the next several days, Larson said.
"Suffice to say, there's gonna be potential for some locally drenching rains and flash flooding once again as we head into the" second half of the week, Larson said. "That's the concern moving forward."
So far, July's seen just more than 3 inches of rain fall in Chicago, Larson said, meaning Chicago's "running above average." The city typically gets close to 4 inches of rain in July.
