This summer was hot and dry. What does the start of fall look like?
Will the dry warm pattern continue, or are we seeing changes ahead?
With Labor Day weekend behind us and meteorological fall now underway, it’s worth a look back at the summer of 2016’s record drought and abundance of sunshine. Starting on Memorial Day weekend and ending on Labor Day, there are 14 weekends to enjoy summer. It seemed like nearly all of those weekends had at least some sunshine.
As I started to dig into the data, I was surprised at several things. Obviously we are in a drought, so the lack of total rainfall for the summer wasn’t a shock. During meteorological summer, Boston received only 3.92 inches of rainfall—or about six-and-a-half inches less than one would typically expect. Another way to think about the summer rain in Boston: There was about a month’s worth of rainfall during a three-month period. That’s dry.
This was the driest summer on record in Boston, but not as dry in other climate locations in New England.
Here’s what’s interesting, however: Out of those 14 summer weekends, there was measurable rainfall during part of at least seven of them. Of course, the rain that fell was so light and brief that we really never thought of any of the weekends as being rainy besides July 8-10, when it remained cloudy with some light rain on and off throughout the weekend. August was particularly hot and dry.
August 2016 was at or near the top warmest on record.
There were 23 days between June 1 and August 31 when at least some rain fell. This is about the same number of rainy days we’ve seen since 2014, when the dry pattern really began to set up.
It’s impossible for me to say whether the next 12 weekends—which take us to Thanksgiving—are going to be dry. However, September and October often bring some of the longest stretches of dry weather for the entire year. If we don’t get a tropical system, we often need to wait until the wetter month of November before we see day-long rain storms.
The slow dry pattern of summer is showing signs of transitions with more frequent chances of rain showers in the coming three weeks.
Right now, I don’t see a blocked pattern that brings us days of rain, rather just a day of showers followed by more dry weather. The loop below shows the chance of showers every few days into the third week of September.
http://giphy.com/gifs/3oz8xzPBeHXAPrJINa
What is quite clear is that temperatures will likely average above normal through the rest of this month and into October.
So keep the beach gear handy. You’ll still be able to use it.
September has a high likelihood of warm weather in New England.
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