>I decided to sift through some temps to check how long it’s been since Minneapolis and other cities failed to hit 90 to see how unusual this July has become.
Amazingly it’s been 15 years since Minneapolis failed the 90-degree mark for the month of July. In July 1994 the Twin Cities topped off at 88 for a max, ironically the peak high so far in July 2009 is only 85 degrees and with a few record low high’s and some cool nights, this month in likely to end 5-6 degrees below normal. Chicago which has seen a max so far this month of only 86, it’s running 5.6 below normal. What’s ironic about the past three years in a row is that Chicago’s peak high for 2009 overall is 94 degrees set in May. This is the same number for peak high’s in both 2007 and 2008, could Chicago has a high of exactly 94 degrees for three straight years? That’s would be strange.
With all the below normal temps for this month from the Midwest to New York City area, it’s running above normal out West where Death Valley has run 13 straight days above 120 degrees with a max of 128. Yesterday ended that 120-degree day run with a high of only 114.
Recent years has seen high across the West much cooler in August than July, even Jun sees higher temps than August as pressures fall quite a bit in August. The Eastern half of the nation tends to stay hotter against the means during August but this summer will be interesting to see how things play out, when will it hit 90 from Minneapolis-Chicago-Detroit-Albany-New York and up to Boston where they really haven’t seen anything typical of summer-time weather and with the storm system riding the New England coast right now, this is keeping things sticky but not all that warm. The southerly, humid flow is making for a clamy, yucky, wet feeling to the air but air temperature is not particularly warm. We await rain totals and even wind gusts that have been recorded along the coast from New Jersey to Cape Cod, Gale warmings were issued for NYC and Long Island, how often does that happen in July when it’s non tropical weather! This is basically a weak Nor’Easter (in July!?) Things can’t get much weirder surely?
Could this be a meteorological summer we fail to get to 90 from New York to Boston? Minneapolis to Chicago? I think it will eventually but if it doesn’t this will be one for the record books and I wonder just how long that’s been without a 90 from June through August…
Thanks for reading.
-Mark