Beautiful Summer Weather
By Russell Russ
Wait a month and hope for better weather. That is what we did and June came in with much better weather than May. Compared to a cloudy May, this June was full of beautiful summer weather. There was rain and there were a few thunderstorms, but more than half the month was sunny and pleasant. Rain is a good thing. It is even better when it comes at a good time, like at night.
June’s low temperature of 42 degrees was observed on June 1 and the high of 83 degrees was observed on June 3, 17 and 29. With an average monthly temperature of 64.4 degrees, it was 1.1 degrees above normal. There were no heat waves and no temperature records set this month. The temperature hit 80 degrees or above eight times, but 83 was as high as we got. No extremes this month.
The total precipitation recorded for the month was 3.23 inches, 1.56 inches below normal. There were three thunderstorms observed this month on June 3, 18 and 25. The storms on June 18 and 25 brought with them some heavy rain and a little wind. No extremes this month. This was very different from last year when 13.38 inches of rain was recorded in June, making June 2013 the wettest June in our 83 year history. It was also the fifth wettest month of any month on record. What a difference a year makes.
For the first half of 2014, January through June, our total precipitation amount was 24.16 inches. Through June we were 1.54 inches below normal. As of June we continued our trend of fairly average weather.
Now, an early look at July’s weather. Through July 20 the rainfall total was 10.22 inches. That is 5.93 inches above normal with eleven days still left in the month. Several days in July had already topped one inch, two inch and even three inch rain totals. As of July 20 it was already the second wettest July on record for Norfolk. The wettest July was in 1996 with 11.47 inches. It appears that our string of average weather will come to a close in July.
