Meteorological summer (June 1 through August 21) is over.  It went by fast as it always does.  Much of the US enjoyed temperatures above normal over the 3 months of summer.  The core of the warmth was across the Ohio Valley east into New England.  See this preliminary map and the chart below.

So how warm was this summer compared to other recent summers in northern Ohio? Did we break records? Here are some bullet points on the weather this past summer.  More to come on my weather blog.

•  Temperatures in Cleveland (June-August) were the warmest on record beating out 2nd place 1949.
•  We only broke 3 record high temperatures. Last year we didn’t break one record. The most ever was in 1988 with 10.
•  53 of the 92 days in Cleveland were at/above 85 degrees, 2nd most ever. It was the most since 1949. Last summer we only had 22.
•  28 of the 92 nights in Cleveland were at/above 70 degrees. That was the 3rd most ever and the most since 1931.  Last summer we only had 4.
•  Rainfall this summer 7.44″ (June-August) was 4th lowest since 1968. Only 2002, 1991 and 1988 lower.  Last year we had almost double the rainfall.
•  Lastly, only 16 days with high temperatures in the 60s and 70s. Lowest since 1952, 2nd lowest number of “mild” days ever.
•  We never went more than 3 straight days in the 70s.
•  35 straight days in the 80s and 90s (July 17 to August 20). The third longest stretch of warmth ever and the longest since a 42 day stretch of 80s and 90s in 1955 (June 27 to August 27)
• Only 20 of the 92 days were below average. That hasn’t happened since 1949 when we had 18. Last year we had 42! None of those 20 days were more than 10 degrees under the average. That hasn’t happened since 1953. Last summer we had 10 days that were more than 10 degrees below average

I’ll have more on this in the weeks ahead.  Will this affect our winter ahead? My second preliminary winter outlook at the end of this month (First one was in mid July.)