Kari is back with the July weather update from northern California, which saw a relatively quiet and cool July. After record-breaking heat in June, it was a welcomed change for all of us cooped up in our homes during the pandemic. Not only was it more comfortable for enjoying the great outdoors, but mild summer temperatures can also help keep fire risk low as we head into the peak fire season. Now, if only we get lucky enough for some early rainfall to reduce the fire threat even more!
In July, the AcuRite Atlas™ weather station, reporting to My AcuRite, recorded a maximum temperature of 98.3 degrees on July 11th. The nearby official NWS weather station reported high temperatures up to 100 degrees and 102 degrees on July 11th and 12th, respectively. The moderate July weather was far from record-breaking; actually, there were no extreme temperature records reported across the Bay Area NWS weather stations. Wonder how it compares to historical July weather and July climate data... let's take a look!
Bonus Tip: How to find monthly climate data
Many tools within the Climate Prediction Center can be handy for temperature and precipitation climate outlooks. But there are also additional climate tools that may be difficult to find if you’re not sure what you’re looking for. In this case, I’m curious to see whether July 2020 was above-normal or below-normal, based on what defines normal, what we call climatology, or 30-year historical weather data. Whether you’re interested in finding local historical weather data by city or by state, this tool allows you to compare US daily temperatures to 30-year climatology data (updated for the 1981 to 2010 climatology dataset).
What’s neat about this tool is there are many options to select daily, weekly, monthly, etc. Then select the date (last date for the period of interest). For example, to consider the month of July, I selected 30-day range, then July 31st, 2020, and Maximum & Minimum Temperatures in °F.
The map produced gives me the maximum and minimum 30-day temperatures (both images stacked on the left), while also showing the anomaly based on the historical weather data (stacked on the right). As you can see from the circled section, the California maximum temperature for the month of July was near-normal, varied between 2 degrees above normal and 2 degrees below normal. Just as expected: moderate July temperatures for northern California!
Share and discuss! Compare your backyard weather data to local climate data.
How does your local July weather data compare to the monthly maximum and minimum temperatures and temperature anomalies shown below? I know I could stare at these maps all day!