Staying hot
Meteorologist Cindy Day says the month of August will be hot and dry, just like July was
SaltWire chief meteorologist Cindy Day said Friday she expects the hot, dry weather continue for the month of August on P.E.I.
The Island just came out of a hot, dry month.
“Generally, it’s staying above average as we’re going to have a pretty hot day (today) where the humidity comes up a little bit,’’ Day said.
A secondary cold front sweeps in on Sunday which will soak up that humidity and make for a normal warm day on Monday and Tuesday.
“But, then it’s going to start to build again. Our humidex by Thursday might be 35 or 36 and then another little cold front on Friday but the general trend is for warmer than normal temperatures through much of August.’’
After a cool start to July, temperatures began to rise quickly.
An average P.E.I. July would see at least 25 days in the month where the temperature is 20
C or higher. Last month, the Island had exactly that, 25 days of temperatures of at least 20 C or higher.
“The few days where it wasn’t were stacked at the top of the month . . . so we got off to a bit of a cool start,’’ Day said.
On average, Islanders will see 0.3 days in July where temperatures hit 30 C or more. Last month, there were two days where the thermometer broke 30 C.
Five years from now those statistics won’t necessarily show it was a warm month.
“It was the way it came at us, in terms of being pretty intense in towards the end of the month.’’
Day said she took a lot of ribbing from folks in June when she issued her summer outlook, calling for hot and dry weather.
“They cried in June, ‘Where’s that hot summer you promised us, Cindy’? Well, I said, ‘Wait for it, it’s coming’ and now it’s here and some people want winter again,’’ she laughed.
To put into perspective how dry things were on P.E.I. in July, the province received 35 millimetres of rain in the month, less than half the average 80 millimetres it usually gets.
Day said she doesn’t see any sustained rain systems in the forecast for August either.