Let’s begin by taking some mid-month July weather inventory for Buffalo. Through Thursday, we are at 1.68 inches of rain, with a small positive anomaly of .39 inch. Since things have greened up around here, it may surprise you to know a large portion of our region remains under moderate drought, with a data cutoff of last Tuesday. The Buffalo metro area, in yellow, is shy of drought status at abnormally dry.
The Drought Monitor incorporates not only precipitation, but deeper soil moisture as well as topsoil, vegetative health, stream flow and reservoir levels, and rates of evaporation and temperature contributions to moisture loss. In any case, it’s safe to say we are in no rainfall crisis. After this occasionally unsettled weekend, gardeners can make their own calls on how much watering will be needed in the next week. The Weather Prediction Center seven-day rainfall projection is not very impressive for our region, also keeping in mind the uneven coverage from summertime convection.
As for temperatures, we’ve been seasonably warm. The monthly mean is 2.6 degrees above average, with a daily peak at 91 degrees on July 6. The Buffalo Lake Erie temperature is at 73, after briefly reaching 74. That’s 2 degrees above average for the date, and matches the average warmest Lake Erie temperature of 73, typically occurring later in July into August. (Sidebar: Many people assume such warmth earlier than usual means there will be more lake-effect snow than average in the cold weather season. In fact, there is no real correlation between a midsummer lake temperature and lake snow. Just a few chilly weeks in early autumn can cancel out any such heat surplus in short order, and this has happened many times in the past.)
After a tranquil and mild Friday with moderate humidity, dry conditions will continue into at least Saturday morning. Another problematic weekend forecast is in the works, with showers and thunderstorms prominently…
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