July is done and it was a fairly boring month. Seriously nothing weather worthy really happened. No heat wave, not crazy rainstorm, no rogue tornado, nothing. The last several summers have been a bit on the warm side but not this one my friends. 2019 thus far has been pretty old school normal.

July was no exception as the merc at my station only broke the 90° mark one time! Yes just a single ninety for the month of July. The month featured 24 deliciously sunny days many of those having some morning clouds to start. Temps were under my established norms some 2 degrees cooler in fact by days with a average high of just 78.13° against my 18 year "normal" of 80.06°. Overnight lows were a bit warmer than average with 57.22° about a degree warmer and that could be attributed to the extra cloud cover in the early AM hours. There were just two evenings with temps below 50° and that's typical as July tends to be the warmest month. The highest temp recorded was a wimpy 90.5° on the 26th and that was followed by the warmest overnight low on the 27th at 63.9°. There were four days that failed to make it to 70° but 13 popped up above 80°. The chillest overnight low was a comfortable 49.6° on the 20th.

The rain gauge recorded yet another sub-par performance. In all fairness July and August are often below normal rainfall as the summer averages are skewed by monster thunderstorm events that occur every 5 years or so. July is often rain free but every now and then we get a 3-4 inch rain event in July and that throws off the average. I'm far more concerned about our sub-par winter months than these under average summers. That said, the most rain was on the 9th when 0.15 inches hit my bucket. There were only 2 days over 0.03 inches and a total of just 6 days with any precipitation at all.

So far this year just four days above 90° and that is well off a typical pace. There were two in June, One last month and another this month. We still have a lot of August to go and the first half of September can produce some scorchers as well, but my gut says we are headed for fewer than ten 90° days this year.

We are -17.43 inches for rain this year. Just 12.04 inches in the gauge thus far. We will need a hyper wet fall to catch that up.

So there it is July was bland but beautiful and we eagerly await what August shall bring.

Welcome to October!

September is in the books and she was a bit on the cool side yet a little dry as well. Despite having 7 days with measurable precipitation, the rain gauge only collected a smidgen over an inch. I did manage to record one temp in the nineties to boost the YTD total to 18 tied for the most since I started records here in 2002. There is a 99.9% chance that 2018 will pass without a triple digit high temp as September's best was a mere 90.7° The month was notably cooler than my "normal" driven by a 2° under for the overnight lows. It seemed wetter than it was as the rain that fell was short and light for the most part. Despite a week of cloudy weather, I still managed to have 20 days with sunshine.

The thermometer stayed above 40 degrees for the entire month and I measure 6 days at or above 80° Every single day in September of 2018 managed to get above 60° as well. The warmest temp was the 90.7° on the 5th, the warmest overnight temp was a warm 59° on the 8th. The coolest mark came on the morning of the 24th with a crisp 42.1°. The chilliest afternoon was the 29th when the merc had to stop at 63.7°

Rainfall was 1.04 inches, well below my typical 2.47 inches. The bulk of it coming on two consecutive days of 0.31 and 0.35 inches the 11th and 12th. Those were the only days that managed to produce more then a quarter inch. Snow levels did come down during the rainy spell that added the first fresh layer of snow to Mount St. Helens, but the warm weather last week melted it right back off.

So now we are fully engaged with autumn and we begin our frost and freeze watch. When will it frost and when will it freeze? The trees are getting ready to put on the annual fall color show and that is always a delight. I typically get the first sub freezing low in the month of October, but there have been several Octobers that did not produce a freezing temp. A frost is inevitable in October. October is also capable of producing temps in the 90s but it is rather rare, in fact even 80s are an oddity for the Harvest Month. 

October is a beautiful month weather she be cold or warm so get out and soak it up my friends, soak it up.

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.

 

November Soggy and Mild

2016 is taking it's final lap as the month of November is retired to history. November was pretty warm overall and seasonally soggy. I have never recorded a 70 degree mark in the month of November and that is still the case but we did tease it a bit with a 68.4 reading on the 4th of the month.

Between the record wet October and this seasonally typical November I have recorded nearly a foot and a half of rain in the last 60 days!

On the temperature side of the weather, that 68.4 was the warmest and the coldest mark I had was 34.3 degrees on the 18th and that means I still have NOT recorded a subfreezing temperature. I did briefly accumulate some ice on my car's windshield on that very night so I have recorded a frost. This year will be the latest for the first seasonal sub-freezing temperature in the 16 years I have been recording at this locale. In fairness, we haven't had a continuously clear night in a long while. The warmest overnight low came on the 5th when the mercury bottomed out at a balmy 52.5. The coolest afternoon high was a seasonal cool, 45.3 degrees on the 27th. Overall the average observed temperatures were 44.8 and 55.19 against my 16 year "normal" of 38.42 and 50.98. That was a toasty November!

As for precipitation it was seasonally pretty typical. I measured a satisfying 7.67 inches in the bucket against a normal 7.98 inches. Nary a flake of snow fell but that is really not unusual at all for November as the last 16 Novembers have had 9 without any snow, 2 with just a trace, and the remaining 5 having some legit snow ranging from 1-3 inches. The rainiest day came about on the 24th when a monsoonal 2.24 inches fell which was one of two days exceeding an inch and 7 days over a quarter. 21 days saw .03 or more and just two days could be called sunny. Yeah, it was November ;)

The local prognosticators are calling for a mass of chilly air to drop down out of Canada and the Gulf or Alaska next week and snow is in the forecast. Hard to say, some feel it will be limited to 1000 feet and higher but others think that we may get isolated, localized snow showers all the way down to sea level. We shall see, but one thing is for sure, December on average is the coldest month of the year and the second snowiest month of the year behind January. La Niña is supposedly in place and that does mean cooler ocean temperatures and a little less effective marine influence on local snowfall.

If it is gonna snow, isn't December the better month for it anyhow? Ho, Ho, Ho, let's have some snow!

Get out and soak it up my friends, soak it up.

Cool July, Nice, Very Nice!

'Nice' is an apt description for the month of July we just enjoyed. Sure there was that one week that was cloudy and even a bit showery, but the rainfall stats were still slightly lower than my 15 year normal. Temps were about 3 degrees cooler than my normal as well. After the last couple of blazing hot summers, I'll take a cooler more typical summer and love it.

The stats played out typical across the board and there were few extremes this past month. The average observed daily high was 76.67 about three shy of the typical 79.71. the average observed overnight low was a very typical 55.35 against a normal of 56.18.

The warmest temperature I recorded was 91.8 degrees on the 28th one of just two days above 90 degrees last month the other a 90.9 mark on the 29th. The coolest temperature was a fairly nippy for July 46.2 the morning of the 14th. That was one of two sub 50 marks in July. The chilliest daytime high came on the 4th of July of all days when I was stuck at 65.3 degrees. Fortunately for all the Independence Day crazies here in the 'Couv' it was a mostly clear day and night. The warmest overnight low arrived on the 21st following a nice 84.9 degrees earlier with 63.7.

The rain bucket got five days of action but only two with any real rain the 7th and 8th with 0.15 and 0.38 inches respectively. The whole month had a fairly typical but less than average 0.70 inches measured against 1.02 as "normal".

That was just a fantastic month. My son Kyle, is in the Army and is stationed at Fort Polk, LA. He will be coming out for a visit next week and believe me he will love our cool weather even if we end up having a heat wave. He has endured routine daily highs in the upper 90s with humidity pushing the heat index well above 120 degrees! Yuck!

So with that in mind get outside and soak it up my friends; soak it up!