This past
summer (June 1-August 31) was a great relief from the past three scorching
summers. Remember that the summer of
2010 and 2011 were back to back the warmest summers on record. Last summer wasn’t quite as hot, but we did
see the all-time record high temperature for South Carolina broken when it
reached 113 F in Columbia.
It was
during this time that much of the region was also battling drought. There was some rainfall during the normal wet
season of summer, but there were few wet months beginning in 2010. In fact there were only 8 wet months out of
36 ending in 2012. It looked like it
would never change.
However,
the weather pattern began to change in February of this year. Rains began to increase, but it also got
colder. There were shifting patterns
throughout the spring, but it too was cool and wet. Then summer began with a very sluggish
pattern that dominated June and July. It
was not as dominate in August, but it was still enough to keep the month on the
cool side.
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| This weather pattern persisted for much of June and July. Click on image for a larger view. Image Credit: WLTX-TV. |
