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What a relief it was to go to the Mariners vs. Blue Jays game last night WITHOUT a jacket! Unlike two weeks ago, the weather was sublime for watching a great game of baseball. But as I sat in the nosebleeds, I began to think: how cold has it really been this month? I mean, I’ve worn light jackets far more than I expected to, but what are the statistics to prove how we ended up number-wise?
Drum roll please…this afternoon I worked on creating a map of our temperatures for the month of July 2012 compared to average. Before you see the results below the picture, just take a look at this graph and see if you can guess whether we ended up below, near or above normal in the temperature department:
The first striking piece of
evidence we can find on this map is the spike in temperatures at
the beginning of the month. In fact, we were going a little
over a week above our normal daytime temperatures! But what held us
back is the consistently cool overnight low temperatures during
that same period. Then, when the daytime temperatures start to
crash in the middle of the month, notice the spike in overnight low
temperatures. If you were looking at this graph and thought to
yourself, “This looks to be a pretty average month”, you’d be
right…in some respects, anyway.
The average monthly temperature for July is 60.8 degrees, with highs and lows combined. Interestingly, when I calculated July 2012’s average monthly temperature, it came out to be…60.8 degrees! Perfectly normal month! However, when I separated the highs and lows, compared to the average monthly daytime high of 72.5, we came out 1.3 degrees cooler at 71.2. The night time temperature, which typically averages 49.1 degrees, came out at 50.4 which is a difference of +1.3. So, naturally, with our daytime high running -1.3 degrees and our night time low running +1.3 degrees…well…it doesn’t take a mathematician to figure out why we hit the monthly average temperature square on the nose 😉
Of course, we had quite the unusual run-in with thunderstorms, which dominated several days in the month. Due in part to the rare thunderstorms, Bremerton airport picked up a monthly total of 0.39”, which is significantly higher than the average 0.03”. And many other Kitsap locations saw far more than 0.39” by months end.
So, to sum up July 2012, we could say it was definitely a month of storms, clouds and fairly average weather. And with all the complaining and griping I heard in relation towards the weather this month, I can tell we’re not use to “normal” weather 😉
So…how about a little abnormality? After a relatively comfortable temperature of 72 degrees today, we’re going to take it down a few notches and introduce a little more cloud cover for tomorrow. In fact, we may even see some drizzle tomorrow morning. As it stands, highs will likely only make it into the upper 60s.
A ridge of high pressure builds into the area Thursday night which will pave the way for continued clearing on Friday and much warmer temperatures. We *may* even get another 80 degree day out of this, but so far it looks like we will be stuck in the 70s.
Then things really start to warm up for our weekend with highs bouncing into the mid and upper 80s across the peninsula. We may find ourselves with the warmest couple of days we have seen all summer. With that being said…get out and enjoy it! A stronger marine push invades the region later Sunday and that will spell more in the way of spotty clouds and cooler temperatures for the new week.
Good job August! Keep it up!
Matthew Leach
Forecasting Kitsap
