In the glow of the Friday night lights in the northern half of Illinois, fans could see rain, which wouldn’t ordinarily keep the players off the field. Lightning is another matter, as the Chicago Tribune reports, and many games have been moved to Saturday afternoon, how it used to be done before electricity came to high school football fields.
Source: ihsa.org, accessed 6 AM, Saturday
Across northern Illinois, highs in the mid-90s with extremely high humidity were reported. This energy and moisture fueled strong storms, lightning, and gusts as high as 84 mph, the Chicago Weather Center noted.
“Temperatures at Friday’s level aren’t everyday occurrences this late in a summer season here,” wrote Tom Skilling, meteorologist at WGN-Chicago. “The last time two 96-degree or hotter temperatures occurred in Chicago beyond August 27 was 53 years ago.”
Des Moines, Iowa, just to the west of Illinois, recorded a high temperature Friday of 104°F, the highest temperature ever recorded in that city this late in summer. That made for muggy, storm-forming conditions across the entire northern Illinois area, from Chicago to the Mississippi River.
The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) reported that at least 98 games were postponed, at least two games were suspended after play had begun, and as of Saturday morning at 6:00, 22 game scores were still missing from the IHSA site; many of these games were likely postponed as well but simply unreported. More than 225 teams were affected, our records show.
The decision to move regular-season games to another day is an easy one, though, in the presence of lightning. Maine South coach Dave Inserra called the decision to postpone Friday’s games “good. It’s better to come back. The kids can refocus and regroup,” the Tribune quoted him as saying.