Despite warm July, summer trending below average

Meteorological summer is coming to an end in just a matter of days for Mid-Missouri, which means it’s time to take a look at how our summer has fared.

One doesn’t have to go back too far to find the triple-digit heat that impacted Mid-Missouri the latter half of July. It’s this heat that led to well above average July temperatures. Highs in many places were nearly 20 degrees above where the average usually stands.

If it weren’t for August, this summer would have been a warm one. Thanks to cooler and drier air remaining in place for most of August, we have seen our summer average take a downward trend.

While this summer is coming out near average, this August is one of the coolest we’ve seen in almost a decade. With just three days left in the month, the average temperature for August is flirting with 73 degrees. If August were to end today, it would go down as the 15th coolest August ever recorded in Columbia. You would have to go back to the summer of 1915 to find the coolest summer ever recorded, at 68.2 degrees.

A large part of why August has been on the cool side can be traced to our upper-level winds. Mid-Missouri has largely been under the influence of northwesterly flow aloft. This weather pattern usually brings cooler weather as Canadian Highs generally build into the region.

With meteorological summer coming to an end in just a few short days, the start to meteorological fall will begin. This means that over the course of THREE months, we will see our average highs drop nearly 20 degrees.

Fall is just around the corner, and so far this August has been teasing many of us looking for that fall weather.