Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Rainy and Cool. Is this July?

We missed out on the heaviest rainfall, but we still received 1.51 inches of rain today. A bit farther west, radar estimates show up to 3 inches of rain fell. There was a very sharp cutoff to the rain to the northwest. Indianapolis received only 0.36 inches of rain while Lafayette received only a trace of precipitation. The rainfall is good news for us because it had been a dry month so far. July is our wettest month of year with an average of 4.4 inches. Up until today, we had received only 1.4 inches. We're still below normal for the month though with a monthly total now of 3.07".
Today also set a record cool maximum for the day with a high of only 66F (18C). The monthly mean high temperature is now 77.0F (25C). That's seven degrees below the 30 year average.
Here's more from the NWS in Indianapolis:
The high temperature at the Indianapolis International Airport today was 68 degrees. This sets a new record for the coolest high temperature for today, July 22. The previous record was 70 degrees, set back in 1996.
This is the third record cool max temperature to occur this month. Previously records fell on the 4th and 18th of this month. While uncommon to set 3 records for cool max temperatures in one month, it was not too long ago we did the same. Back in July 2004 3 records were set for cool max temperatures.
July has also not experienced a high temperature in the 90s this year. Only 8 times since 1871 has a July not recorded a high temperature in the 90s, which happened most recently back in July of 2004.
The average high temperature for the first 21 days of the month so far has been 78.6 degrees. This is the coolest average daily max temperature for the first 21 days of July on record. The previous mark was 79.6 degrees, in 1960. The average should be around 85 degrees, and only one day this month has been above average.

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