Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Jan. 30, according to the Tribune’s archives.
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Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
- High temperature: 55 degrees (1988)
- Low temperature: Minus 23 degrees (2019)
- Precipitation: 0.97 inches (1939)
- Snowfall: 14.9 inches (1939)
1939: Illinois was one of 13 states affected by a brief storm, which dumped almost 15 inches of snow here in roughly 15 hours.
It was the most severe snowfall Chicago had experienced in a 24-hour period in duration and accumulation.
The intense snowfall made it difficult for both the sick and the expecting to receive medical attention. After she and her husband’s vehicle became stranded in a drift, a pregnant Mrs. Thomas Galbraith climbed into a police car to make the 5-mile journey to a hospital in Joliet. When it could go no farther, a wrecking truck took her in. Thankfully, she was finally transferred to an ambulance and delivered a baby girl at the hospital.
2000: Illinois Gov. George Ryan declared a moratorium on executions, saying it would be in effect until he could be morally certain that no innocent person would face execution in the state. Three years later, Ryan commuted the sentences of 164 death row inmates to life in prison without parole, citing a system “haunted by the demon of error.”
2013: Ryan was released from a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana, and spent just hours at a halfway house on Chicago’s West Side before he was released and sent to his Kankakee home, where he remained on home confinement until July 2013.
Ryan entered prison on Nov. 7, 2007, after an April 2006 conviction for fraud, racketeering and other charges, which was the culmination of the federal Operation Safe Road investigation that exposed rampant bribery in state driver’s license facilities while he was secretary of state as well as misdeeds as governor. He had been sentenced to 6 ½ years in prison.
2019: Chicago observed its coldest temperature in 34 years — minus 23 degrees on Jan. 30, 2019, at O’Hare International Airport, the city’s official recording site. It was tied for the fifth coldest day since the National Weather Service began keeping records in 1872.
The polar vortex, a whirlpool of Arctic air typically perched atop the North Pole, dislodged and descended into the Midwest causing the bitter cold.
The week’s record-breaking cold snap spotlighted weaknesses in the region’s transit system. Problems like stuck train doors, cracked rails and minimal shelter for waiting passengers showed the need for more investment.
Chicago weather: A look back at our coldest recorded temperatures
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