It’s not so much that yesterday’s high was a record-setting 107 at DFW. Or that we have hit 100 degrees 15 of the past 16 days. Or that the average high was 99.8 degrees in July. Or that the thermometer on my front porch, which gets a direct hit from the afternoon sun, was at 112 at about 6 p.m. yesterday.
What drives me crazy is that it’s still 80 degrees -– or warmer –- when I go walking in the morning, about an hour before the sun comes up. The low has been 80 degrees or more 16 times since July 11. When I was in Chicago a couple of weeks ago, there were several days when the afternoon high wasn’t 80 degrees.
Four of the warmest summers in the 100 or so years records have been kept, based on highest average temperature, have come in the past 10 years -– 1998, 1999, 2000, and 2006. We’re on pace to add 2008 to that list.
And for those of you tracking rainfall, we’re about five inches below normal. We had less than one inch of rain in July, compared to the 2.12 inches we normally get. So there is a reason the grass is yellow.
