Last month got off to a blistering start in Berks County as anyone waiting outside on July 2 for Big Boy 4014\u2019s appearance can attest to.<\/p>\n
The temperature was off to the races with highs of 99, 103, 102 and 99 degrees July 1 through 4, respectively, on the automated equipment at Reading Regional Airport. The only date records were the 103, which eclipsed 102 degrees in 1966, and the low of 77 degrees on the 3rd, bettering 76 in 2018 for mildest low.<\/p>\n
Of the 31 dates in July, 18 have high temperature records of at least 100 degrees. On the other end, 27 of the 31 dates have low temperature records of at least 76 degrees.<\/p>\n
The temperature database is approaching 13 decades long.<\/p>\n
But, after the blazing start, most of last month was unusually normal for this hot era of Julys: seven of 12 hottest on record since 2010.<\/p>\n
Retired meteorologist and Berks weather historian Jeffrey R. Stoudt of Lincoln Park sized it up this way: \u201cOther than a three-day comeback of heat at midmonth, including 98 on 15th, the great majority of days after the 5th averaged near normal to moderately below normal in temperature, keyed by lows of 56 on 20th and 24th, typical for lowest during a month of July.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis trend eroded the early huge plus departure to a modest final departure of plus 1.0 degree from a final average of 77.1, way below the 10th warmest July of 79.0 which last occurred in 2022. Despite the very strong start of heat this July, only eight days heated to at least 90, below the average of 10 days during July.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stoudt sees a parallel with the July from 60 years ago in 1966: \u201cBoth of which began with high heat that then subsided with several mild days but some hot comebacks.\u00a0 And July 1966 contained several days with more-miss-than-hit downpours resulting in drier than normal officially and on most areas.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rainfall<\/p>\n
On the precipitation front, rainfall was a subnormal at 3.22 inches for July at the official site at Reading Regional, and only came that close because of 1.21 inches in a thunderstorm at the airport on July 28.<\/p>\n
\u201cSome sections of the Reading area received considerably more, enough to cause some brief localized flooding,\u201d Stoudt said.<\/p>\n
But overall, \u201cThe longstanding severe drought intensified further.\u201d<\/p>\n
Some areas of Berks received average or above rainfall totals, especially northeast sections where some got over 6 inches. Some places southwest of Berks in northern Lancaster County collected around 8 inches, added Stoudt, the founder of the Berks Area Rainfall Networks.<\/p>\n
For the year at month\u2019s end, the airport was at 18.06 inches, 7.45 below normal. Or, the total for the year is about two-thirds of normal.<\/p>\n
However, the county overall is showing 21.4 inches of precipitation, 5.1 below normal, according to a division of the National Weather Service, the Middle Atlantic River Forecast Center. That amount takes into account many more sites than the airport and is quality controlled by a hydrologist.<\/p>\n
The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has Berks listed with seven other counties in a drought warning, with a call for a 10% to 15% voluntary reduction of water consumption.<\/p>\n
All counties touching Berks except for Montgomery also are in drought warnings.<\/p>\n
Philadelphia and Montgomery counties have recently returned to \u201cnormal\u201d status, according to the DEP\u2019s Commonwealth Drought Task Force. The Middle Atlantic center has those counties at 22.8 inches, 4.8 below normal; and 20.8 inches, 6.3 below normal, respectively.<\/p>\n
The Montgomery County deficit is the second steepest in Pennsylvania behind Bucks County\u2019s minus 6.4.<\/p>\n
The DEP didn\u2019t discuss the particulars of Philadelphia and Montgomery counties but does say this: \u201cDrought declarations are not based on a single factor. DEP considers four key indicators: stream flow, groundwater levels, precipitation and soil moisture. Each has an established normal range.\u201d<\/p>\n
July weather in Berks<\/p>\n
\u2022 Temperature: 77.1 degrees<\/p>\n
\u2022 Normal: 76.1 degrees<\/p>\n
\u2022 Precipitation: 3.22 inches<\/p>\n
\u2022 Normal: 4.77 inches<\/p>\n
More data:<\/p>\n
\u2022 90-degree days: 8 (annual total: 19)<\/p>\n
Source: National Weather Service<\/p>\n
Rainfall amounts from the Berks Area Rainfall Networks in inches:<\/p>\n
\u2022 Bally, 6.61<\/p>\n
\u2022 Boyers Junction, 6.49<\/p>\n
\u2022 Topton, 6.1<\/p>\n
\u2022 Quaker Hill, 5.78<\/p>\n
\u2022 Mohrsville, 5.74<\/p>\n
\u2022 Oley Furnace, 5.41<\/p>\n
\u2022 Strausstown, 5.33<\/p>\n
\u2022 Henningsville, 5.22<\/p>\n
\u2022 Bernville, 5.13<\/p>\n
\u2022 Muhlenberg Park, 4.59<\/p>\n
\u2022 Lobachsville, 4.58<\/p>\n
\u2022 New Morgan, 4.54<\/p>\n
\u2022 Boyertown, 4.42<\/p>\n
\u2022 Shartlesville, 4.35<\/p>\n
\u2022 West Reading, 4.24<\/p>\n
\u2022 Womelsdorf, 4.19<\/p>\n
\u2022 Auburn, 4.17<\/p>\n
\u2022 Morgantown, 4.09<\/p>\n
\u2022 Reading E, 3.99<\/p>\n
\u2022 Shillington, 3.56<\/p>\n
\u2022 Wernersville, 3.52<\/p>\n
\u2022 Lincoln Park, 3.51<\/p>\n
\u2022 Greenfields, 3.5<\/p>\n
\u2022 Knauers, 3.5<\/p>\n
\u2022 Mohnton, 3.48<\/p>\n
\u2022 Cornwall Terrace, 3.44<\/p>\n
\u2022 Hamburg, 3.39<\/p>\n
\u2022 Elverson NE, 3.24<\/p>\n
\u2022 Cacoosing, 2.77<\/p>\n
\u2022 Frystown, 2.18<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last month got off to a blistering start in Berks County as anyone waiting outside on July 2…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,182,139,28,128,130,129,706],"class_list":["post-258909","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-top-stories-reg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}