July almost normal in area
Weather folks often talk about normal or average weather. Weather is what you get on a daily basis. Climate is what you get over a long period of time. Climate is also made up of the extremes: floods, droughts, brutal cold and dangerous heat.
Over a period of time, all of these items go into the pot to produce an average or a normal. So often the daily weather is anything but normal.
The news of the past few days has been about the flooding that occurred over much of Southwestern Pennsylvania. Watching the news this evening flash floods are again at work in the Southwest and record heat in the Northwest. Portland, Oregon may set their all-time heat record if the predicted high reaches 108 on Thursday. The streets of normally dry and parched Tucson, Arizona, are full of water from flash flooding.
In our area, July temperatures have been pretty close to normal averaging about a degree above normal in the lower elevations and two degrees above in the mountains. Rainfall is a different story and the July totals are much above average. The storm last weekend brought 3 to 5 inches of rain and caused wide-spread flooding in the area. The storm was also unique in that it had all the characteristics of a mid- winter storm, including Atlantic Ocean moisture and upper air support.The upper air pattern was able to fetch moisture from the Atlantic and bring it across the mountains to Southwestern Pennsylvania and Northern West Virginia.
In discussing this with the National Weather Service, this type of storm is extremely rare for so late in the season. Had it been snow, we would have seen accumulations of 20-40 inches. The wet pattern for July has been widespread and persistent.
The chart below will give you an idea of how wet July has been. While we did have a few days with temperatures at or near 90, July did not have a lot of hot and humid days. Our rains were usually followed by several nice days with sunshine and low humidity.