July is in the books and it was for all intents and purposes: spot on average. With a average daily high of 81 and a average daily low of 55, I was one over by day and one under by night. Rainfall was a big fat zero and that is well below the historical "normal" of 1.02 inches. By no means however, is a bone dry July unusual.July was just wonderful in every measurable way as far as weather is concerned.
As for the temps I recorded a monthly high of 90.1° that came yesterday and was the only temp in July above 90°. Every single day last month busted out over the top of seventy degrees and the chilliest afternoon was the 7th when 70.7 was the best she muster. So I had 19 delicious summer days between 80-90 degrees. I have said it before and I'll say it again, summers in the Metro Portland-Vancouver area are as good as any on this planet. I did have a three quasi-chilly morning lows where the mercury dipped into the upper 40s the coolest of which was a 48.9° recorded on the 11th of July. The warmest overnight low was a balmy 62.8° on the 23rd which was the only overnight low that remained above 60°.
There was no rain in the month of July so I have no stats for precipitation. July and August are typically the driest months of the year and it is not unusual to have a blank slate on precipitation during either month. It would be unusual to have both July and August bone dry in the same year. We shall see if that happens this year.
August is starting off with the furnace set to Venus levels. Today is expected to tease the century mark and both tomorrow and Thursday are forecast to bust well above 100°. Friday is another wild card that with tickle the triple digits. If all four days break one hundred degrees it will be a first for me in 16 years of observations at this station. Just to be clear, I have never recorded more than two 100° plus temps in a row. I have yet to record a dozen 100° marks in that 16 year period. We may get four this week! If I were betting on it, I'd say we get two of the four. We shall see it all begins later today. The NWS has already backed the high forecast for today at PDX down to 99° from the 100° they predicted in yesterday's forecast.
One interesting thing I see is the Wednesday evening low forecast at 71°. That is a 'Hot August Night'. My all time record for overnight lows was set back on July 22nd, 2006 when I recorded a low of 73°. That low came after a rare day of clouds and upper 90s and the cloud cover kept the heat in all night long. We are not expected to see so much as a whiff of cloud cover so I think that record is probably safe.
Get ready for the heatwave and go a head and soak it up my friends, at beach if need be, but soak it up.
