Hello everyone! Hope you all had an enjoyable and safe Labor Day weekend. My family and I went camping near Fort Lewis and had a fantastic time, although we greatly underestimated how cold it would be at night. It occurred to us we didn’t bring enough blankets when the low temperature Saturday morning was 43 degrees!

But of course, by that time August had left us and we began a new, naturally chillier month. In fact, September 1st is the beginning of meteorological fall! So let’s take a moment to analyze our last month of true summer weather and see our highest highs and lowest lows. First of all, here’s the graphic!

Already, this map looks very different than July’s. After some hot temperatures at the beginning of the month, both day and night, it seems that things calmed down considerably. In fact, from about the 16th onward temperatures never touched 80° and appeared to hug the line of “normal” temperatures. The low temperature tells the same story: a spike at the beginning of the month with a gradual trend towards normal, and then slightly below normal temperatures.

But who can forget the two “heatwaves” August offered us? Of course, on record we only had about 3 days at 90 or above, but they were impressive readings. 89 and 96 degrees on the 4th and 5th of August respectively put us back in the record books. Low temperatures even exceed 60 degrees for a brief time! The second wave of warmth occurred while I was sweltering in Provo, Utah on the 13th, 14th and 15th. Although largely unimpressive when compared to the warmth at the beginning of the month, high temperatures still stayed in the upper 80s and low 90s for a few days before nose diving to the upper 60s after its peak.

I then went out on a limb and predicted we may not see 90 degrees again until 2013…and that still seems like a viable prediction. The rest of the month went out quietly, but it didn’t completely sneak under the radar! In fact, on August 29th, the Kitsap Peninsula saw measurable rain that hadn’t been recorded in over a month. But even that rain was short lived and left as quickly as it came.

So what are the numbers? Let’s put it this way:

August average high temperature: 73.2°; August actual high temperature: 76.1°

August average low temperature: 49.7°; August actual low temperature: 51.2°

August average mean temperature: 61°; August actual mean temperature: 63.5°

In terms of the average overall temperature, August 2012 ran 2.5° above average. Of course, the deviance from average increases when you compare the high temperature and decreases when you compare the low temperature.

Is anyone sad to see August go? It was warm (sometimes very much so!), it was dry and it was overall very pleasant temperature wise. But I think a lot of us will look back at this month and largely forget any weather events that occurred because, like most Augusts around here, not much happened. Then again, this is coming from a weather nut who’s hard to impress! 😉

So how about this first full week of September? Will 80 degrees inaugurate the first day of school for some school districts? As it stands, between now and Thursday we’ll be on one big steady incline towards the 80 degree mark. It’s not looking like we’ll get much beyond that, but boy will it be sunny and warm to finish off the week! Highs will be in the mid 70s today to the upper 70s/low 80s Friday.

The weekend looks pretty good, although we’ll start to cloud up a bit towards the end of it on Sunday and introduce a little more in the way of clouds. Highs will also dip into the upper 60s and lower 70s.

But for those of you who just can’t get enough of the sun…you’re in luck! Already it’s looking like a pleasantly mild and dry first half of the month. In fact, I don’t see any signs of true fall-like weather until the 23rd of September or so, but by then the official fall season will only be a couple days old anyway 😉

Have a great day everyone and try to enjoy what summer some of you have left!

Matthew Leach

Forecasting Kitsap

forecastingkitsap@live.com