Ah, the first day of fall was actually rather nice, a few lingering showers, some blue skies and sunshine, highs still in the low 70s. Yes, September for us weather and climate folks is always the beginning of a new season as the rest of you await the official change on the calendar later this month.
But for the record books, we have stored away the statistics for the meteorological summer, June, July and August. And that will show that it was indeed a very cool season; however, we did manage 12 90-degree days. To me, it was ideal, except for the gray and damp days of June. And some of you with gardens have harvested red tomatoes while many are still waiting except for those tasty cherry tomatoes. It may be a struggle to get a large harvest this year, as I don’t have really good news in the extended outlook, either.
1993 was a cool summer, and looking back at some of my columns on this date in 1993, I began my column with this quote, “Summer until further notice” were the words spoken the other night by KPTV’s David Apple.” I added, “Good news albeit two months late.” The entire summer was a bummer with nearly 2 inches of rain in July and temperatures below average.
In my June 22, 1993, column I said this, “CLOUDS, CLOUDS, CLOUDS! The first day of summer officially began at 2 a.m. Monday and just shortly after, around 2:20 a.m., the clouds rolled in and drizzle began by 6 a.m. What a way to start the summer season.” I went on to say in that column, “ But what could you expect? After all, we had just completed five dry, mostly sunny days with pleasant temperatures. That incidentally, was perhaps our longest dry spell all spring.”
