THERE IS A
BETTER WAY
TO GET THE
WEATHER.
Stop relying on those crappy weather apps. They’re always wrong, and they’re all the same. Booooooring. 🥱
Instead, wake up to a fun, accurate, and engaging text with a contextualized forecast from Dr. Mika, a queer, actual climate and atmospheric scientist, sent directly to your phone!
Let Mika tell you a story about the weather. She’ll explain WHY the weather is what it is. Subscribers have told her they’ve deleted their weather apps and literally can’t live without The Weather Text.
PLUS: You’ll always know what to wear.
**This service is ONLY for Chicago right now**
An example weather text from February, 2024. Currently, this service is only available for Chicago-area residents
Subscribers cannot live without The Weather Text
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The Weather Text!
Some Example Weather Texts:
January 17, 2024
The coldest weather of the year* is now over! Temps this morning are in the single digits, but should “warm” to a balmy 17°F this afternoon. The bright brilliant sun from yesterday will be obscured by some clouds today but it won’t be totally overcast so there will still be that little sunny glimmer of hope :) … Some flurries/light snow will invade the area tonight as a blob of unsettled weather rides along that re-forming jet stream.
Light snow will end tomorrow morning but the clouds will hang around. Temps tomorrow will start out in the single digits but rise into the low 20s! 🥵
Heavier snowfall is likely Thurs night-into Friday, followed by another slight dip in max temps by the weekend (back into the negatives on Sat and Sun mornings).
*The “coldest” time of year for Chicago is historically January 13-25 so the timing of this cold snap is in line with climatological norms. This doesn’t preclude more cold weather in February or even March, but it is *very* likely, given El Nino, given global warming, and given the trends this year, that another Arctic outbreak like this will not occur. All the models indicate a return to slightly-warmer-than-normal temps by Monday. Check out a graph showing the extreme drop in temps this week compared with last week here:
November 15, 2023
This incredible mid-November warmth will continue again today. High temps are expected to reach the upper 60s today under mostly sunny skies 😎🥵. The record high for today is 71°, set in 1971.
Record / near-record warmth in November is becoming a regular occurrence: in 2017 the temperature rose to 63° the day after Thanksgiving, in 2020 the thermometer hit 76° on November 9, in 2021 temps rose above 60 degrees three times after November 7, and in 2022 the thermometer reached 76° on November 10. Wowza !!
The near-record warmth will continue tomorrow with another day in the mid to upper 60s. Clouds will build into the region tomorrow afternoon and some rain may fall overnight as a cold front works its way southward. A cooling trend will commence on Friday that will gradually progress over the weekend as a dip in the jet stream brings colder Canadian air into the upper Midwest….
Despite the warmth today, by this time next week morning lows will be in the 20s and afternoon highs will only reach the mid 30s 🥶😱
January 16, 2024
It’s still really effing cold out there and temps are in the -0s so make sure to bundle up again today 🥶. But as the core of the detached “polar vortex blob” starts to disintegrate and move eastward, max temps this afternoon will be slightly warmer than yesterday (upper single digits). I do, however, expect bright sunny skies so bring sunglasses if you don’t want the bright white snow to burn your eyeballs 😎. It will be bitterly cold again tonight though temps may remain ever so slightly above 0. Watch out for those brutal wind chills as well!
But things will begin to moderate tomorrow as slightly milder air rides northward ahead of 2 little nuisance disturbances. These disturbances will bring a chance of snow showers to the region on Wednesday night and then again on Thursday night. Max temps on both days will be around 20°F, with nighttime lows in the 0s.
The remainder of the week will feature similar temps and clearing skies (sun returns by this weekend)! But the real pattern chance will come next Monday when the jet stream finally shoves the polar vortex away and we return to our regularly scheduled global warming winter with temps slightly warmer than normal and skies generally cloudy with a chance of rain. Yes, rain. 😂
August 24, 2023
It’s gonna be another brutally hot day out there today. After reaching a high of 98°F yesterday (we didn’t quite make it to 100 but it was a record high for the day), the air has not cooled off much overnight. Temps outside are in the low 80s right now. 🥵
But it’s really the dew point that is causing trouble: with dew points hovering in the upper 70s, the current heat index is 91°F. At 6am 😩. Yesterday was only the 7th day *IN CHICAGO HISTORY* that recorded a dew point of 80°F or higher. [You’ll recall my handy dew point cheat sheet (remember, “relative humidity%” is meaningless if you’re trying to understand how humid it FEELS): <60 = comfortable. 60-65 = slightly humid, 65-70 = humid, 70-75 = oppressive, 75+ = extreme.] Yesterdays dew point reading of 80F, combined with temps in the upper 90s, produced a heat index of 116°F, second highest in Chicago history 🔥🥵.
And today will be even hotter.
Temps will again soar to around 100°F (today I think we will actually hit it) under mostly sunny skies. Unlike yesterday, however, relief will arrive just before /around sunset in the form of a noticeably cooler lake breeze. This will drop the temp from ~100F at 5pm to the low 80s by 8pm. Overnight temps will bottom out near 70. Thunderstorms are likely this evening in association with the advancement of this cooler air⛈️
The lake will keep things manageably cooler tomorrow and the threat of t storms will return in the afternoon ⛈️ before another “cool front” drops temps even lower for the weekend. In fact, this weekend will almost feel like autumn. What whiplash!
What the heck is THE WEATHER TEXT and how did this quirky little service start??
Let’s take it all the way back to 2018:
Prior to the first ever WEATHER TEXT, I was constantly updating my friends about what the weather would be. “Oh, you want to go hang out by the lake? Well you’d better go early, because after 4pm there is a chance of thunderstorms.” Or “Hey it’s gonna be sunny and mild today we should go for a walk in the park!” Or “The roads are gonna be icy after 3pm so if you’re leaving for the weekend you should go as early as possible.” That kinda thing…
Then, a few friends suggested that I send them a summary of the forecast every morning so I didn’t have to constantly send little individual blurbs. I already look at the weather models every morning and formulate my own forecast so this seemed easy enough. This would simplify things, they said. Ha!
Anyways, I took their advice, and on April 24, 2018 I sent the first ever WEATHER TEXT to about 12 friends, haha!
Here she is:
Over the years, The TEXT evolved. I added people to the listserv by request only. But, I kept the overall list small, because I had to approve each text individually as they sent from my personal phone number (LOL!). More and more people wanted “in”, but I tried to keep it hyper-exclusive, mainly for my own sanity. The text eventually grew to 50 subscribers… 100 subscribers…
By August, 2023, the TEXT had evolved to include 240 subscribers. That means that my personal phone was sending a WEATHER TEXT to 240 people every morning. This was a bit ludicrous because it meant my personal phone was out of commission for about an hour every morning. 😂
That’s called commitment, babes!!
Speaking of commitment, some of you probably remember me typing and sending the WEATHER TEXT at 6am, after having been up all night raving, wearing a friend’s converse hi-tops, sitting on a log at the No Way Back party in Detroit on Memorial Day 2022. Again, COMMITMENT.
Dr. Mika sending the weather text at 6am from a party in Detroit, May 2022
On January 9, 2024, after months of preparation and infrastructure-building, I finally decided to open the TEXT up for everyone in Chicago. Since then I’ve gained hundreds of new followers !!!
I am absolutely floored that so many of you love this unique, cute, WEIRD little project. Honestly, it has been such a source of joy for me and I am so happy I can share my love (and obsession) of weather with you all!!
Most importantly, I am elated that I can improve weather and climate literacy during a time when climate change is truly rocking our world.
If we are to build a better future amidst devastating climate changes, we all need to buy in, which means we all need to be able to access the science. Scientific literacy has always been the primary aim of this project and I think the results speak for themselves. Sign up today; you won’t regret it!
Love,
Mika