Warpping Up Summer

The weather has been rather uneventful for the past few weeks.  In general meteorological summer (June, July, August) was not pretty mundane with the exception of June which was rather rocky.  

In June we had numerous severe weather threats including Saturday night/Sunday Morning (June 5/6) which saw tornadoes move across the northern third of Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and southeast Michigan.  There were touchdowns in Miami, Carrol, and Cass Counties from this storm system.  

The other rounds of severe weather were not nearly as eventful.  June was really wet.  While at the time I don't think anyone would count that as a blessing but it turned out to be one. July was dry and August was very dry.  Indianapolis sat a record in August for the driest since records started being kept in the late 1800's.

Here are the precipitation maps for each month and the three month total.

Overall we were in the sweet spot for precipitation with 200% plus of normal for the period.  You can see that southern third of Indiana which is now suffering from a drought isn't seeing low water tables for the lakes and rivers/streams since they overall are not that far down on precipitation.

 Even the precipitation from the start of the year is not that far below normal.  What is a problem for them are the fire dangers.  Things are starting to become rather dry and fall should continue with below normal precipitation elevating the possibility of fires. 

Temperatures were also above normal for the three month period.  I won't detail each month but after a slow start to the 90 degree days, July and August made up for it.  While there were long stretches of warm days, we never saw record warmth and never flirted with triple digits locally. 

I do see at least a couple more chances for 90 degree days in September but I there won't be a long stretch like before.  A couple of days here or there but some stretches of cool days in between too.

Fall in general should be a bit above normal for the three month period and more dry than wet.  November could see a quick flip to cold and an early snow might even come into play.  That is still a ways off so nothing concrete.

I do keep seeing an active tropical period for most of September and there should be more discussions about winter.  Of all of the winter forecasts I have seen, only one hinted that our area might be below average snowfall.  All of the rest go above average. 

My winter forecast and the official snow day prediction for Howard County schools will be out on November 1 (or thereabouts.)  No matter what the weather, football season is here and I do love that.  Go Boilers! and Go Colts!