Boredom 2

The weather continues to be boring. We had 1.16" of rain this past week which has greened the grass quite a bit, but other than that nothing interesting has happened locally. There are just a few hints of fall color starting to come out on the trees, but most is due to dry weather. We've not had many cool nights yet, although we are having some big temperature swings with the dry air in place.

I read an article on wthr.com stating that due to the dry weather this summer, the fall color may actually start in the south and work it's way north this year. I'm not so sure about that though. http://www.wthr.com/Global/story.asp?S=7144328

The drought monitor has eased the drought for us a bit here. It's still pretty dry though.

Boredom

Will the boring weather ever end? Besides the record warmth this summer and dry conditions this has been the most boring season of weather in recent memory. Hopefully things will turn around soon and not just give us a tease like we had a couple of weeks ago.

Beneficial Rain

Wow! Here it is the middle of September already. Well, almost the middle of September. Anyway, the weather has turned around from the hot and dry weather of the past several weeks to pleasantly cool. We've also had some beneficial rain. Starting on Friday, September 7 and ending on Sunday, September 9, 2.53" of rain fell. It was certainly enough to give the grass a boost and green things up. I don't think you can say that it has ended the drought though. Last Thursday, the drought monitor had a large area of southern Indiana in "extreme drought". That is serious. I imagine the drought will continue, although ground moisture shouldn't evaporate quite as readily since temperatures are cooler now. A drought monitor update will be published tomorrow so we'll see if the rains of last weekend have decreased the "extreme drought" coverage.

We are finished with the 90's for this summer.

Today's morning low dropped down to 47 degrees. The coolest temperature since May 19 when the temperature dropped to 42. More cool weather is on the way too.

August Summary

August 2007 will be a month looked back upon in weather almanacs for years to come. This has been an exceptionally dry and hot month. Fifteen days saw temperatures rise to 90 degrees or higher. We had two stretches of consectuive 90 degree + temperatures with the hottest stretch being from August 6 through August 9. The highest temperature recored though was 96.3 degrees on August 29. This was the hottest day of 2007. Interestingly though, the lowest high temperature was recorded the next day, August 30, with a temperature of only 78.1 pleasant degrees. The highest heat index was 109.1 degrees on August 8th. The mean temperture for the month was 76.7 degrees.

August was also a very dry month. We had only 4 days with measureable rainfall totaling 1.62". As a result, the area has been placed within the "severe drought" boundaries. The ground is dry and only getting drier.

August Statistics --

Highest High Temperature - 96.3 on 8/29

Lowest High Temperature - 78.1 on 8/30

Highest Heat Indext - 109.1 on 8/8

Lowest Low Temperature - 54.4 on 8/18

Highest Low Temperature - 73.5 on 8/6

Days with measureable rainfall --

0.24" on 8/6

0.79" on 8/8

0.52" on 8/20

0.06" on 8/22