June Monsoon Gives Way to Blue Sky July!

Happy July! It will be a wonderful day to enjoy! I think a few people may be complaining of catching a fair weather flu. If your bosses ask you why you will not be into work today just tell them to look out the window and they will understand. If that does not work tell them to check out the weather blog to see how much you deserve a day off! Look at these June rainfall totals! Our average rainfall in June is 4.24" here at WLFI and we were about an inch above this total. Frankfort was on the verge of doubling their June rainfall. It could have been much worse. Areas south of Indianapolis had close to 18" of rain or about 6 months worth of rainfall bringing them their worst flooding since 1913.

I took these pictures on Friday night, June 27, 2008 at about 8 p.m. There is also a short video too. I live 1 mile north of Young America, Indiana southwestern Cass County. I love watching the different clouds. I was looking west, northwest when I took these.

This video sent in by Katherine Forgey from Logansport shows the ominous clouds we had on Friday. It seemed like every Friday turned into Friday the 13th. It tells the story of our our June that I am calling our "June monsoon". We had severe weather on 10 out of 30 days in June or about once every three days. We had 23 wind reports, 9 hail reports, and 6 tornadoes. This comes out to an amazing 38 total storm reports. Compare this to last June when we had very little severe weather. We only had 3 storm reports (wind gusts of 60 mph or greater) the entire month with only 2 severe weather days out of 30. June 2006 was also very quiet with only 3 severe weather days and 6 storms reports (3 hail and 3 wind). I think in a more typical June we would average close to 10 to 15 storm reports with about 5 severe weather days per month. So June 2008 will go down as having about a summer's worth of severe weather! Bring on July. The question is will this continue. I do have good news. The latest long-range maps still have a weakening La Nina which is all but gone now and you combine this with a brutal heat wave set-up out West and a big Bermuda high pressure to the southeast and this spells drier days ahead. Here is my July rainfall map that shows the bullseye for heavy rain staying south and east of us.

Here is the great news! We average 4 inches of rain in the month of July and I would be surprised if we see rainfall surpass 5 inches. We will have more of a west-northwest flow. The pattern is certainly going to be different, but keep in mind I am still worried about our severe weather season lingering into July. This flow has been known to bring tornadoes to the Midwest. So even though the heart of our severe weather season is in May and June we will have to watch things carefully in July!

Now how about some real hot, hot, hot weather in July is it going to finally move our way? I can tell you we had the wettest June since 2004 and the last time we were this soggy we only ended up with 2 days of 90 degrees or above the entire summer. It was also a La Nina summer. Will this pattern repeat? I will be back tonight to answer this question on the news and check back with it here on the blog. In the meantime, enjoy our first blog song request sent in by Teri Trent. It is a perfect song that fits the mood of our weather as we begin July.

What a great request for a great day! Now it is time to head to Columbian Park Zoo. I think a train ride with the kids sounds good right about now.