The Autumn Segue Begins

August 2018 is history and it was a classic if not a tad warmer month. Looking at the chart here you can see several incursions above the 90 degree line. That brings my total for this year to 17 days at 90° or higher just one day shy of my record of 18 set in 2015 and 5 more than the average year which sees 12. In a typical September I will get one or two 90 marks at my house, but they almost always come in the first week of the month and we seem to be in a chilly mode right now with clouds, showers and temps in the 70s. We shall see, a pair of late 90s will topple my previous mark for days with wasted heat energy ;) Despite all these 90° days I have not posted a century buster yet with 97.3 my 2018 high thus far, posted in July. I have never recorded a 100 mark in September so 2018 will quite likely leave without one. That is not at all uncommon as I have roughly half of the years go by without a triple digit temperature.

August looked like a typical August really, average temps hovering just a smidgen above "normal" with a daily average low observed at 57.63° and high at 81.64° both just about one over. The hottest afternoon came on the 9th with "El Sol's" 94.6° effort. That was one of seven days in the nineties. The coolest daytime temp arrived on the 26th when the mercury was subdued to a mere 63°. The chilliest evening temp was the lone sub-fifty mark of 47.5° on the 25th. August gave us several warm evenings, producing nine morning lows in the sixties including a toasty 65.5° on the 10th. It's not surprising it followed the warmest daytime high on the 9th.

The month of August managed to give us 21 sunny or mostly sunny days and just 3 days with any "real" rain. Several of those "sunny days" were hazy with smoke from fires in Eastern Washington and British Columbia pushed into our region. I received some showery weather towards the end of the month producing a total of less than 1/4 inch well below the "normal" 1.27 inches for August, but still within the typical expectation for the month. The wettest day was the 26th with 0.09 inches.

So as the title suggests it is time for the Autumn segue. Even though the ninth month can and often does produce warm sunny weather, it has a a tendency to feel chilly as temps take a bit of a plunge. October and November are the months that really plunge on temps but this is a segue from warm and reliable summer weather to chillier and wetter fall weather. It is definitely time to have a backup plan for any scheduled outdoor activities if you don't like a little damp in your life. We are not likely to see any sub freezing lows nor are we likely to have a real heatwave. In fact with the exception of the increased threat of rain, September is usually a gorgeous month. Lovely 70s and low 80s are never out of style.

Soak it up my friends, soak it up.