August goes on record as dry month

I woke up early one morning this past week, and upon stepping outside thought it smelled like fall. Temperatures were in the 40s and the air was crisp, almost like a sneak preview of the season to come. Places like Deer Park, Pullman and Sandpoint have recently experienced morning lows in the 30s.

Of course, August just ended yesterday with summerlike weather in full force, as afternoon temperatures climbed back into the upper 80s and 90s.

A look back also shows a dry month with only two days of measurable precipitation, totaling a mere .36 inches in Coeur d’Alene and .40 inches in Spokane. Normal August rainfall in Coeur d’Alene is nearly three times that much. We will likely be facing similarly warm and dry conditions for much of this month as well, though the pendulum has swung on both sides of extreme temperatures in the past. On this day back in 1967, during one of the hottest summers in the area’s history, Coeur d’Alene saw a record high of 102 degrees. In contrast, a record low of 33 degrees was recorded on Sept. 3 back in 1958.

While our weather hasn’t been breaking records recently, you might be surprised to know that it is a different story nationally. On any given day, in fact, an average of 30 temperature and/or precipitation records will fall in various locations across the United States. To keep track of all this extreme weather, fellow meteorologist Randy Mann has produced a new feature that can be found on the weather page of each Tuesday’s Spokesman-Review. Icons indicating different weather variables are placed on a U.S. map to show all the locations in which weather records were broken during the past week. A running tally of all records broken, along with a percentage breakdown of the types of records, is given as well. More details can be found at www.extremeweather records.com.

Despite a forecast of warmer and drier weather for the month, we can still expect temperatures to start decreasing as we head toward the autumnal equinox, or the first day of fall on Sept. 23. Average highs start at 79 degrees, but will drop to 68 degrees by the end of the month. Average lows begin at 50 degrees, decreasing more gradually to an average low of 41 on Sept. 30. We see an average of 1.58 inches of rainfall during September though in 1975 the month was completely dry. We are currently about 2.5 inches below normal in the rainfall category for 2007, with a yearly total so far of only 13.16 inches. This is in major contrast to last year, which despite it’s dry summer had a year-to-date rainfall total of over 21 inches due to the wet spring of 2006.

While heavy rains would be welcome across parts of Central Idaho and Western Montana at this time to help knock down the numerous wild fires that continue to burn, it looks like wet weather will be much more likely in areas of the central and eastern U.S. where it’s definitely not wanted nor needed. September marks the peak month of the Atlantic hurricane season, and remnants of these storms are notorious for bringing flooding rains to the interior U.S. Though the tropical waters have been quiet since the flurry of destructive weather from hurricanes Dean and Erin, expect activity to pick up in the coming weeks. According to the 2007 hurricane names list put out by the National Hurricane Center, Felix, Gabrielle and Humberto will be the storms you will be hearing about next.