The Bible describes the Great Flood, when it rained for 40 days. We are on the flip side of that 40 days with no rain since June 16. There will be no rainfall for the rest of the month into early August, so with today’s 41 days without measurable rain, we will be entering the record books of long dry spells.
Besides the dry weather that we have enjoyed after the soaking cold rains of winter and early spring, we have escaped so far the heat of summer. This month we have had only two days at 90 degrees or higher. On Tuesday, we almost squeaked out 90 degrees but fell short at 89 degrees officially.
The average mean temperature for July is just about normal for the month, and rainfall, of course, is in the negative column. We will see morning clouds today and Friday and lower high temperatures before it warms up into the mid- to upper 80s over the weekend extending into next week.
This month has been nice and dry compared to July 1983, which was a wet one. That year, nearly an inch of rain fell between July 25 and 27. I recorded 4.29 inches in Hazel Dell for the month, and at that time we blamed it on a new climate event: El Ni?o. Little did we know at that time that we would be using the phrase over and over in the months and years to come.
