No cooling centers. No extended beach hours. No oppressive humidity. No heat advisories. No ozone alerts. Yes, the summer of 2014 will be remembered as one of pleasant, sunny days.
In fact, the mercury in local thermometers hasn’t hit the 90-degree mark all summer long.
That’s very unusual for summer on Long Island. In fact, it’s only the third time in more than 30 years that temperatures have not reached 90, according to National Weather Service meteorologist Joe Pollina.
While daytime highs haven’t ventured into extreme territory this summer, the average monthly temperatures for most of the summer season have been warmer than normal, based on data collected at Islip since 1981. June’s average monthly temperature of 70.4 was 2 degrees higher than the monthly mean and July’s average of 75.2 was 1.3 degrees higher than normal. August, averaging out at 71.9 degrees as of yesterday, has been 1.1 degrees cooler than normal.
That’s because of consistency in the the daytime highs and daily low temperatures that did not get as cool as they usually do, Pollina said.
And, with the exception of the Aug. 13 storm that dumped heavy rains on western Suffolk, it’s been a dry summer season, too. Islip recorded 1.79 inches of rain in June and 2.96 inches in July — well below the normal of 4.27 and 4.6 inches, respectively, for those months.
Most of the East End saw less than 1.5 inches of rain in August, according to NWS data. Parts of Riverhead and Calverton had 1.5 to 2 inches of rain. Most of western Suffolk had August rainfall totals from 4 to 14 inches, thanks to the Aug. 13 storm that dumped a record 13.51-inch rainfall in Islip. Normal precipitation in August is 3.74 inches.
Overall precipitation was about half of the normal amount from June through August— as of Friday. But August isn’t over just yet. Rain — possibly heavy rain — is in the forecast for the last day of the month, the weather service says.
