And my tax dollars go into reporting that on average things are about average.

Whoopee !

Which is normal. We always have our warmest days in September. But compared with the previous 44 Septembers, it was nothing to write home about.

How about analysis of the summer as a period? This must have been one of the coldest summers on record. In Pennsylvania we were 5 to 10 degrees below normal routinely. We hit 90 only a few days. Normally we have 30 or more 90 degree days in summer. We went from the last frost warning on May 14 to first frost warning on October 13. A whole 5 months of spring, summer and fall! That leaves us with 7 months of winter and associated heating expenses, not to mention slowing economic activity. My friend is a concrete contractor and he doesn’t know how he will make it through the winter.

From my electricity bill:

Average Temperature 64F 67F
the first # is this year… the second is last year.

I think everyone should check

God I hate this state!

Two years ago my wife and I took a fall color trip to Traverse City at this time in October. Well there was no color because the trees hadn’t changed yet. But it was warm enough to spend a few days at the beach. We actually went swimming in the Grand Traverse bay on Oct 10. This year the high temperature on the 10th was 50F. So I don’t think I’d try swimming there now.

In Northern Wisconsin it was warmer than normal for about HALF of September. The beginning of the month was still cold, and it brought frost (actually a hard freeze at 26-27ºF) two weeks earlier than normal. Then we had a couple of warm weeks, then the bottom fell out. I don’t think it is worth a lot of drama that the jet stream finally swung north for a couple of weeks after our abnormally cold summer spent mostly north of it.

We are paying the price now, we had an inch of snow yesterday, the first time since the early 1900s. Monday our normal high was 57, we barely hit 33. We probably won’t get within 8-10 degrees of our normal high for another week.

The 22 days without rainfall in Sept isn’t abnormal either in the context of a summer that was down 35% from averages and frequently included periods of several weeks without rain. It is also the third summer in a row like that. Believe me, I know. Part of my income comes from the whitewater river a mile down the road. The past few summers it was more suitable for a geology class than rafting or kayaking.

The point? I don’t think that the map gives an accurate portrayal or the real story. The real story is that we spent the last 10 months at the lower end of our climate norms for both temperature and precip, with or without the two warm weeks in September.