Muggy Air & Storm Chances Return, Nice Weather Returns Mid Week

The holiday weekend weather was perfect as dry air settled in for a few days (thanks to a Canadian High) resulting in high temperatures only in the 70s! The break from those hot & muggy temps, which was with us for much of the past 2 weeks, are coming to end as gulf moisture arrives! On Thursday, the high temperature of 73° was the coolest in 20 days (June 13th). I took a look back over the past 50 years and only 3% of the July days from 1964 to 2013 saw a high temperature below 75°. The high temperature was 12° below normal (85°) and more typical for September 26th. On Friday morning, the low temperature dropped to 54° which was the coolest morning for an Independence Day in nearly 20 years! You'd have to go back to 1996 when the thermometer dropped to 54° and in 1997 the low was 56°. Last year, the low temperature on the the 4th was 63° but that low wasn't nearly as high as when we saw a low of 75° in 2012. That's the year when we saw the 2nd hottest Independence Day afternoons on record with a high temperature of 102°. The actual record high is 103° set in 1911. The record for the warmest low is 78° also set in 1911. The record for the coldest low is 48° set in 1968.
After seeing high temperatures of 79° on both Friday and Saturday, temperatures returned to the 80s on Sunday. The official high was 82°.

As muggy air arrives, the storm chances return. Some showers were on radar early Sunday morning but didn't last long. Only three hundredths of an inch was recorded at the NWS office at Indianapolis International Airport. More rain will return with a cold front & may even bring some gusty thunderstorms of which could meet severe weather criteria. Though the chance exists, hail and tornadoes should not be a huge concern. We are mostly looking for damaging winds and tropical (blinding) downpours with frequent lightning. Severe weather chances exists for Tuesday but SPC has only placed extreme Southern Indiana in the risk zone. The threats Monday will be present on Tuesday. Temperatures on Monday are likely to be warmer than Tuesday. I think temps will barely make it to 80 on Tuesday as I'm expecting clouds & storms to keep us from jumping too much.



We get another pullback in the temps for Wednesday and Thursday. This won't be a significant pull back but you'll notice these days won't be as muggy as what we are in now. Sunny skies will the general rule for mid to late week thanks to high pressure moving in but those storm chances will return for next weekend. The entire weekend won't be a washout though. Most of Saturday appears dry but its Saturday night into Sunday Morning when a storm may pass through. The second half of Sunday looks dry at the moment. Temperatures, at this distance, over the next 10 days look to stay below 90!


JUNE 2014
June was an unsettled & muggy month. Numerous storm chances gave us one of the wettest months of June we've seen in 5 years (2010-9.73"). The month saw 15 days with measurable precipitation totaling 7.04" going on to finish as the 13th wettest. The wettest day was June 4th when 1.43" fell that day. On June 24th, central Indiana saw 3 tornadoes (2 EF-0 & 1 EF-1). More information on that and the path of these storms, which were less than 5 miles each, can be found in archive story from NWS INDIANAPOLIS, IN. Click HERE to be redirected to this write up. As for temperatures, we saw the thermometer peak at 88#176; on 3 different days. These days are tied for the hottest temperature of the year so far. The overall average temperature (a combination of all the days highs and lows) was 72.7#176; which was nearly 1° above normal. This didn't make the top 50 coolest or warmest months of June. For more information on the climate last month you can click HERE to be redirected to the write up from NWS.

I've updated my table below of monthly and seasonal averages and rankings to include June now. Here's how the year averages up so far (through June 30th).

MONTH	AVG MONTHLY TEMP	TEMP DEPARTURE FROM NORMAL	MONTHLY TEMP RANKING	TOTAL MONTHLY PRECIP	PRECIP DEPARTURE FROM NORMAL	MONTHLY PRECIP RANKING	TOTAL MONTHLY SNOWFALL	SNOWFALL DEPARTURE FROM NORMAL	MONTHLY SNOWFALL RANKING
DECEMBER	30°	-1.8°	46th Warmest	4.44"	+1.27"	26th Wettest	8.8"	+1.9"	24th snowiest
JANUARY	20.1°	-8°	11th Coldest	2.34"	-0.32"	68th Driest	26.9"	+18.3"	2nd Snowiest
FEBRUARY	22.3°	-9.8°	12th Coolest	2.45"	+0.13"	66th Wettest	16.5"	+10"	9th snowiest
WINTER '13-'14 (DEC-FEB)	24.2°	-6.3°	8th Coldest	9.24"	+1.09"	50th Wettest	52.2"	+30.2"	1st Snowiest
MARCH	35.7°	-6.5°	20th Coolest	2.38"	-1.18"	40th Driest	3.1"	+0.6"	46th Snowiest
APRIL	53°	0.0°	59th Warmest	5.39"	+1.58"	40th Driest	0.3"	+0.1"	34th Snowiest
MAY	63.1°	+0.4°	71st Warmest	4.87"	-0.18"	45th Wettest	0.00"	0.00"	N/A
SPRING (MAR-MAY)	50.6°	-2°	41st Coolest	12.64"	+0.22"	53rd Wettest	3.4"	+0.06"	53rd Snowiest
JUNE	72.7°	+0.7°	63rd Warmest	7.04"	+2.79"	13th Wettest	0.00"	0.00"	N/A
JAN-JUN 2014 ANNUAL AVERAGES	44.5°	-3.9°	N/A	24.47"	+2.82"	N/A	46.8"	+28.9"	N/A

INDIANA CROPS
Area farmers had all the corn crops emerged by the end of June and on June 30th reported 75% of the corn crops were in good or excellent condition. 96% of the soybeans have been emerged and report 70% of the soybean crops were in good or excellent condition. The new weekly crop report should be out on Monday. I imagine they'll probably report all the soybean emerged given the decent weather pattern over the past 5 days. Last year, all corn and soybean crops were emerged by the end of June, so they are running about a week behind this year.

WHERE'S THE 90s?
As you all know, we have yet to see our 1st 90 of the year and there doesn't appear to be any indication we will see a 90 for atleast the 1st half of the month. There have been 120 years since 1871 that has seen the 1st 90 by June 30th. There are only 21 other years that saw the 1st 90 on or after July 1st and out of those, there are only 3 years that had to wait til after August 1st. The latest date on record is September 1st, 1960 while the earliest date on record is April 24, 1925. Last year we had to wait til July 16th. The last time we saw a 90° day was 297 days ago on September 11th. There are 45 years on record that has gone 300+ consecutive days without seeing a 90. The greatest was 646 days when a 90° wasn't recorded between August 29, 2003 and (or to) June 4, 2005. This was because there wasn't a 90 recorded in 2004. Could this year be the 2nd year on record not to see a 90? We will see. By the way, the average date for the 1st 90 was back on June 14th.
For more on 1st 90° dates and other information on summer heat you can read a previous blog I composed a few weeks ago, "Calendar Says Summer but We're Still Waiting for Our 1st 90"

Here's a look at my latest outlook for the next 7 days.