One thing is certain - the full heat of summer is approaching McHenry. If you haven't done so yet, it's time to have the air conditioning checked in your car.

How high will the temperature rise this summer here in McHenry and will your car’s AC keep you cool no matter the heatwave we experience?

The Farmers’ Almanac projects that we’ll have a “Sultry, Thunder-Filled” summer in the McHenry area. That includes a summer heatwave that will test your car’s air conditioning.

In truth, whether we have an exceptionally hot summer, or a normal summer, there are definitely days when you’ll want your car’s air conditioning working at tip-top performance. 

The average high temperature in McHenry, from 1992-2021, for the months of June, July and August, were 81, 85 and 83 degrees. On any day when the thermometer hits those temperatures, you’re probably going to want to use the air conditioning in your car.

Last June, we had 10 days of 90-degrees or higher. The highest of these was 97 degrees. We had five days with temperatures of 90 or higher in July and seven days of 90 or higher in August. That works out to 22 out of 92 days for those three months. In other words, more than a quarter of the days in the hottest months we topped 90 degrees. And there were 13 more days in the upper 80s.

What it all comes down to is that we had plenty of opportunities to use the AC in our cars. There is no doubt that we were happy to have air conditioning in our vehicles.

You can check your car’s air conditioning by turning the AC on while the engine is running. But, if you’re testing the AC on a cool day, you don’t really know how well it will hold up on a hot day.

A cooler day doesn’t really test your car’s air conditioning the way a hot day will. A hot day simply makes the AC work harder. 

You can wait until the temperature hits 97, or higher, to check your air conditioning. You may then find that it doesn’t do the job the way it did when the temperature was 82 degrees, for instance. But this is no time to discover that your car’s air conditioning can’t hack the heat.

To ensure that your car’s AC is ready for the hottest days of the coming McHenry summer, you can have it checked out by a qualified auto repair technician. They’ll take the guesswork out of the hot days to come.