Historically cool summer period concludes

Published 6:08 pm Wednesday, September 4, 2013

The meteorological summer season for 2013 concluded on Aug. 31 with a cooler summer than previous years.

“The summer ended up on a cool note as far as high temperatures are concerned,” said Jodi Aaron, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Calera.

The summer season is divided into two categories including the meteorological summer that starts on June 1 and ends Aug. 31 and the solstice summer that begins on June 21 and ends Sept. 21.

Although temperatures for the months of June, July and August never reached 100 degrees in Alabama, Aaron said the overall average temperatures for each month were not unusual.

“What ended up happening this summer compared to previous summers in Alabama is we had daytime highs that didn’t reach the high numbers but our lows at night stayed pretty consistent,” Aaron said. “The average temperatures at night added a level of moisture to the ground that does not allow the temperatures to drop. With a dryer ground you can still drop quite a bit at night and we didn’t really have that this year.”

Aaron said the warmest day for both Montgomery and Birmingham was July 17 with temperatures reaching 93 degrees.

According to Alabama’s monthly climate report for the month of August, produced by the University of Alabama in Huntsville, Clanton’s highest temperature was Aug. 10 at 91 degrees.

The lowest temperature was Aug. 27 at 60 degrees.

Other facts listed on the report included the heaviest rainfall day on Aug. 14 with 2.11 inches of rain with the heaviest day ever recorded on Aug. 26, 1970.

Record low temperatures for Clanton was on Aug. 24, 1957 at 51 degrees and the record high temperature was recorded on Aug. 8, 1935 at 105 degrees.

Although the meteorological summer season has ended, Aaron said the rest of the week in Chilton County will have temperatures that feel like summer.

“It is going to be warm and dry,” Aaron said.

Aaron said temperatures will more than likely reach 92 degrees leading up to Sunday when cloud cover will lower the temperature to 90 degrees.

“Everything should stay dry up until Wednesday afternoon of next week so there is a pretty substantial drying trend coming up,” Aaron said.