August was a warm one with an average temperature of 86.9 degrees, which ranks as the 4th warmest on record. The top 3 warmest August's on record are: 90.2° in 1994; 88.7° in 2009; 87.3° in 1995. Temperature extremes for the month ranged from a high of 106° on the 24th to a low of 69 degrees on the 30th. Three temperature records were set/tied during August and all of them were high minimum temperatures.

As is normally the case during August, rainfall totals were highly variable across the metro area. Using several sources like rainlog.org and the Pima County Regional Flood Control District gages, totals ranged from 0.50"-4" at the lower elevations and 4-6" in the mountains. Officially, the International airport recorded 2.04", which is a quarter of an inch below normal.

Summer 2010 goes into the record books as the second warmest on record (tied with 1996) with an average temperature of 87.4 degrees. Although the second warmest, it was still far away from the warmest summer on record which occurred in 1994. The average temperature for the summer of 1994 was 89.9 degrees. The average high during the summer of 1994 was a scorching 104.8 degrees compared to the 100 degrees in 2010.

As is normally the case during the summer, rainfall totals were highly variable across the metro area. Using several sources like rainlog.org and the Pima County Regional Flood Control District gages, totals ranged from 2"-6" at the lower elevations and 10-15" in the mountains. Officially, the International airport recorded 4.75", which is slightly over a tenth of an inch above normal.

The average temperature for 2010 continues to be slightly above normal. Eleven temperature records (one low maximum and ten high minimums) have been set/tied during 2010. This is the first time since 1977, and 9th time overall (1977/1975/1973/1966/1964/1961/1945/1941), that no record HIGHS have been set/tied through August. The 2010 rainfall total at the airport of 9.51" ranks as the 24th wettest January thru August period on record.

Climatic normals describe the average of a meteorological value, like temperature and precipitation, over a 30 year period. The United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) established guidelines that climatic normals be calculated using three consecutive 10-year periods ending in the most recent year that ends with the digit 0. 2010 marks the last year for collecting the latest 10-year period that will be used for the new 30-year normals. The National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) will be calculating these new 1981-2010 normals during 2011 and they will go into effect in 2012.

The following table shows the August differences between the 2001-2010 period versus the 1971-1980 period that it will replace.

This next table compares the preliminary 1981-2010 normals versus the current 1971-2000 normals. The 1981-2010 data shown below will not be the actual values that NCDC (National Climatic Data Center) derives, but they are a very close approximation.

Glueck