Recapping June 2011

June is in the books and temperatures were warm...but not as warm as last year.   The average temperature of 75.4 degrees is 3.1 degrees above the 1971-2000 averages and 2.2 degrees above the soon-to-be current average temperatures, good for 9th warmest since 1872 in Philadelphia.   Much of June's warmth came early on, with temperatures topping out at or above 90 four times in the first ten days but only one time after June 10th as the monthly temperature average was much closer to average in the latter two thirds of the month (see chart below).

Rainfall was below average in Philadelphia, coming in at 2.56", about three-quarters of an inch below the old normal and nearly nine tenths below the new norms.   Over half of that rain was from a single night storm event on June 16th-June17th, which brought 1.46" to the Airport.   The rest of the month brought about one-third of average precipitation.

Revisiting the First Half of June

The first half of June has been a hot one -- averaging 4.3 degrees above where we "should" be through Wednesday, a monthly average temperature of 74.3 over that time frame to an average of just over 70 degrees in the first half of the month.    We blitzed past the 90 degree mark four times so far, including a scorching 99 on June 9th, preceded the day prior by an equally oppressive 97 on the 8th.  Believe it or not, the first half of the month also featured four days of below average temperatures although those departures were rather modest, unlike the blitzing of heat we dealt with earlier this month.

In terms of precipitation, the first half of the month an inch of rain (not including the rains from Thursday night/early Friday morning), which was about an inch below average for the month's first half.   Thanks to those heavy rains and thunderstorms on Thursday night we are running with a surplus in the rainfall department locally.