Well August continued the them of this summer, warm.  It wasn’t nearly as warm as July was though.  We had no 90 degree days in town, which is somewhat unusual.  There were several days in the mid 80s.  The coolest temperature at the Wausau Downtown Airport was 51 degrees, although there were a handful of nights with lows in the 40s in many outlying spots. 

 In Wausau the average low temperature was 58.6 degrees which was 1.6 degrees above normal.  The average high temperature was 79.1 degrees which is 1.4 degrees above normal.  By the way, we are now using a new set of “normals” that covers the period from 1981 to 2010.  Up until August we were using data from the 30 year period from 1971 to 2000 for the “normals”.

Rainfall was pretty interesting.  For the entire month we picked up 5.36″ in Wausau, which is 1.20″ above normal.  This is kind of misleading, since about 80% of the rain fell in two days during the first week of the month.  On the 2nd, 1.96″ fell and on the 6th, 2.43″ occurred.  It was really pretty dry the rest of the month and you could tell the lawns and plants were getting a bit browner and drier recently.

Look Ahead to September

As we lose more and more daylight heading through September, of course the normal temperatures drop.  In Wausau, the normal low temperature for September goes down to 48.1 degrees and the normal high temperature slips to 68.8 degrees.  It typically is still a fairly wet month with a normal rainfall of about 3.9″.

Even though we have some cool weather in the forecast around Labor Day, the long range models show a fairly dry and warm pattern developing over the Upper Midwest later next week and into mid-month.  So right now, my estimate would be that we will end up warmer than normal in September, and probably somewhat drier than usual. 

It’s one of my favorite months.  Fall color really picks up late in the month and I get to harvest a lot of those late season crops like squash and apples as well as dig up those delicious potatoes.  I usually start picking my field corn and sunflowers as well later in the month for my chickens.  It’s neat seeing the season’s worth of sun and rain and hard work produce its harvest.  Maybe you enjoy a first frost that normally comes in September as well.  Here’s to a great September for all of you!

Posted under Monthly Recap, Summer