Monday, 5/20

It's never gonna be sunny & hot this year, is it?

After another weekend of wet & cold temperatures (conditions that seem to have become our default weather settings since last September), I decided to see if this is just a weird year, or if I'm complaining a lot for nothing. I looked through a bunch of temperatures records that I've been keeping for a decade or so (Yup, I'm a dork. What's your point?), plus a sheet of National Weather Service records Karl Bohnak once gave me for 40+ years before that.

What did I find in this cursory glance? Well, on average, we have our first 80 degree day on May 12^th. The earliest we’ve ever hit 80 was April 11^th, and the latest we've hit 80 (which actually made me scream out loud when I read it) was June 26^th, 1960. It’s a good thing I wasn’t even born then; can you imagine the complaining I would’ve done?

So what I think I discovered is that things ARE strange up here this year, at least weather-wise. May so far is over 8 degrees below normal; in fact, it may as well get even worse by the time the month ends, too. And it would make sense—we've had this streak (at least here in the city) of over 240 days with the temperatures not getting above 70 degrees. I'm kinda surprised this month's average isn't a lot MORE below average than it currently is.

Looking through all the data, though, I did find one thing to give me a little hope. Back in 2005, we didn’t hit 80 for the first time until June 2^nd, which was also way behind schedule. Yet, 2005 ended up being one of the warmest summers on record here, a summer that I also remember as being full of sunshine (and the last summer before this one where I wasn't preparing for a trip to Europe and could enjoy it in its full glory). So maybe Mother Nature has a few issues she just has to work out before giving us summer. Maybe she’s just holding back, so we’ll really appreciate the warmth and the sun when it does finally arrive.

Let's hope so. Because if that’s not the case, and Mother Nature decides we don’t get any 80 degree days this summer, then there is going to be heck to pay. If Mother Nature thinks I whine about the weather enough now, she hasn’t seen ANYTHING yet!!

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)