Wonky stuff

Watch out!  This blog post could suddenly put you to sleep--even if you've been drinking coffee.  We're going to talk weather wonky stuff this morning.  Susun has been asking repeatedly about how many days we've had at 90 or above this summer.  Well, we'll cut the the chase.  I think the answer is fourteen (14).  It looks like our high temp for this summer was 95 on both July 3rd and July 18th.

The first 90 degree day was logged June 28th at 93 degrees.  The last 90 degree day (barring an unforeseen and highly unlikely heat wave) was July 29 at 91 degrees.  There have been no 90 degree days during August and there probably won't be.  The deeper we get into this month the less likely it is that we will see a day that registers 90 or above.

June was cool with an average high of 74 and an average low of 43.  We all thought June was wet but it totaled only .63 inches of precip the whole month, even though it rained on 11 days.  July's precip totaled .29 and .17 of that came on July 12, Roger's first full day during his visit here.  It rained or sprinkled only six days in July.  Despite the fact that July had the most 90 degree days, the monthly average temperature was only 87.5 degrees and the average low was 49.6.  That's the kind of July weather that potatoes love.  A nice hot, dry July will grow big fat #1 tubers that will get shipped all over America to be served with a great big ol' t-bone steak someplace.

August has cooled off as it always does.  The high so far has been 88 and the lowest low 45.  The average high so far is 84.6 and the low is 48.5.  We've had 1.04 inches of rain this month, all from monsoonal moisture sneaking up from the Southwest.  If climatological data is an indicator, the August high average will be 79.3 and the low: 44.8

It's all downhill from here as far as the temps go.  September's average low over the past 50 years has been 37 and October's average is 27.4.  It takes really good hard frost to cause the leaves to come off the local trees.  Last year's warm fall was a real anomaly.  There were no days below 32 last September.  The first day below freezing in October last year was on the 12th at 29 degrees but that's not cold enough to affect the leaves. We really didn't get good and COLD until November 9th when it reached 14 degrees.  That's the day the leaves really decided to say Adios to their Mother Trees and split downwind.  That's why we didn't get outta Dodge here until November 17-18.

This year, we expect nice cold temps to come much earlier in the grand scheme of things.  As you can see from the graph below, there is normally a high probability of leaf-dropping temps by the last third of October.  We suspect we will be seeing those types of temps in early October this year.  The record low temp for any September was 7 degrees on Sept. 20, 1983.  Believe it or not, it's been below zero as early as October 17th (1996). Time will tell how this fall season shakes out.

So, why are we dwelling on all this esoteric stuff?  Well, as we mentioned yesterday, it's looking highly likely that we will have to be going back to Indiana.  Susun will be staying here.  Our though process is rather pre-occupied with how we are going to handle the Indiana situation and also prepare for our annual migration to Ol' Airy Zonie.  Even though this is still technically early August, we're only a few blinks of an eye away from the October time frame when we expect the leaves to drop.  As you know, our migration motto is "When the leaves are gone, we leaving."  So, that leaves perhaps 8-10 weeks to get everything in order and skee-daddle south.  Now, imagine trying to fit in one or more trips back to Hoosierville.  You can easily see our evolving dilemma.  From our point of view, it's not too early to begin looking ahead and visualizing how we are going to fit together all the pieces of our personal puzzle.

Have a great day & Many Cheers, jp