No Weather Complaints This Month
By Russell Russ
As it was for the last several years in a row, June was a very pleasant summer weather month. Actually, eight of the last ten Junes have had mostly good weather. June 2015 was Norfolk’s fifth wettest and June 2013 was the wettest June on record, but eight out of ten is not bad. Regarding Norfolk’s weather this month, with many nice, clear days and not much humidity, there was little to complain about. Some people in the weather business even called it boring. That may be the case, but we should enjoy the beautiful weather while we have it. The weather will always change. Enjoy it while you can.
June’s low temperature of 43 degrees was observed on June 20 and the high of 86 was observed on June 26. With an average monthly mean temperature of 63.3 degrees, it was just 0.1 degree below normal. At times this month it felt cool, almost early fall-like, but temperature-wise, it was a very average June. In June of last year, which ranked as Norfolk’s fourth warmest, there were two days in the low 90’s and multiple days with record or near record highs. Not the case this June where there was one day with a near record cold low temperature and just four days with highs in the 80’s. Norfolk’s warmest June was in 1943 with 68.3 degrees, the coolest was in 1958 with 58.8 degrees.
The total precipitation recorded for the month was 2.68 inches, 2.13 inches below normal. It was a dry June, but it did not even rank in the top twenty for dry Junes. The driest June was in 1988 when only 0.61 inch was recorded. The wettest June was in 2013 with 13.38 inches. What was very unusual this June was that there were no thunderstorms. This was the case in the entire Albany, NY forecast area. No severe weather occurred in our entire region. This is unusual for this time of year.
For the first half of 2022, Norfolk’s total precipitation amount was 23.57 inches. This was 1.85 inches below normal through the month of June. It is the largest deficit of the year, but it still was not too bad. As of late June, eastern Connecticut was in a slight drought, but here in the northwestern part of the state we had not reached drought conditions yet.
Nice weather continued to bless our area through the first half of July. Norfolk saw a big increase in thunderstorm activity early in the month. Thunderstorms were observed on July 2, 12, 13 and 14. The July 12 storm, with three waves of small thunderstorms over a two hour span, caused several tree and powerline issues around town. Norfolk was creeping toward drought conditions early in the month. Many lawns were beginning to turn brown. Thanks to several days with rain and thunderstorms, the rainfall total by mid-month was 1.91 inches, which is near normal for half of July. This is quite the change from last July when it rained almost every day for the first three weeks of the month. Last year, June was the ninth driest June and July was the wettest July on record. Weather conditions in Norfolk this summer definitely are not as extreme as they were last year. We do need the rain at this point, but let’s hope we do not repeat what happened last year when the rain seemingly did not stop from July through the end of the year.
