Quote:
Originally Posted by CanisLupusArctos
We may also notice things like, "it's been cool and rainy this summer." We've had a cool/unsettled pattern (springlike) more often than not this year, and this weekend it's showing signs that it wants to repeat.
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Good points CLA but I don't agree with your assessment entirely. June 08 will go down in the books as above average temperature wise in NH, and most of the east coast for that matter. Plus I believe we are about to enter a sustained hot pattern for much of the nation, especially the west-central US but probably the NE as well. Although La Nina usually makes for a cool and stormy winter/spring, summer La Ninas are typically warm and dry which is the way we're headed I believe.
I think that part of the perception of cool, wet summers lately comes from skewed recurrences of days gone by; our selective memory recalls the sunny, hot days a lot better than the cool wet ones. (this is the Grandpa principle... "When I was a kid, I used to walk to school in 3 feet of snow in September!") In addition, the late 80s and early 90s featured some anomalously hot/dry summers, which may have established an unrealistic baseline for us when we were younger. I have memories during this period of a lot of sultry, sleepless night in the old uninsulated lake cabin.
I have to keep reminding myself that those years were the exception, not the rule. Although LCI does not have a long term climate history, based on Concord's I would guess extrapolate that average high temp for the lake is about 80 in July and 78 in August. I'd bet that if we had taken a survey, most people would have guessed something much closer to 90.