Back in the office

I got in a bit early this morning to beat the heat. Good thing, too, as my train line partially shut down upstream of my stop just as I got on the train. It's up to 34°C at O'Hare and 33°C at Inner Drive Technology World HQ (feels like 42°C—107°F), with a forecast of 36°C and continued horrible heat indicies for this afternoon when I walk Cassie home from dog school.

Chicago isn't the only place getting this awful weather. The record heat will affect over 200 million people this week with similar temperatures from North Carolina to Connecticut hitting tomorrow.

Meanwhile, the Lake Michigan-Huron system's water level has dropped more than 150 cm since its soggy peak in 2020, giving us our beaches back and ending routine flooding on lakefront streets on the South Side. (Don't worry, we still have a fifth of the world's fresh water.)

The weather should moderate tomorrow, with thunderstorms coming through in the afternoon. I very much preferred the weather in Seattle this past weekend, though. And I hope that Cassie and I can get some real walks this week.

We had temparatures of 32 C in London on Saturday, which seems to have caused issues on several Underground lines and the Thameslink train line. We were travelling through the capital on our way from Cambridge to Heathrow Airport in the hottest part of the day, and decided to use the Elizabeth Line (new, spacious air-conditioned carriages) rather than the Piccadilly Line (old, cramped carriages with no A/C). We're glad we did, because by the time we reached Heathrow, the Piccadilly Line was suffering severe delays due to signal failures at Acton Town, a key junction.