August 2015 sets heat record
CARIBOU, Maine — Jessica Cyr said Thursday that she was sympathetic when it came time for her two children to go back to school earlier this month.
“They were complaining that the weather always is the nicest when it is time for them to go back to school,” said the 43-year-old mother, whose children attend Caribou schools, where classes started Aug. 19 to accommodate a potato harvest recess Sept. 28-Oct. 14. “And I remembered that it is just how it seemed when I was young, like it always seemed to get the sunniest and hottest when it came time for us to go back to school.”
For this past month anyway, there may be some proof of that.
Meteorologists with the National Weather Service in Caribou said in a written statement issued Thursday that last month set a new mark for the warmest August. The average temperature for the month was 68.2 degrees, only two-tenths of a degree higher than the previous record set in August 2012.
August also marked the 12th warmest month overall on record in Caribou. The warmest month on record was July 1970 when the average temperature was 69.6 degrees.
The rising mercury in August reversed a cooling trend that was set in June and July, according to the weather service.
Temperatures ranged from 2 to 3 degrees above average along the Down East coast and 3 to 4.5 degrees above average over the rest of central and northern parts of Maine.
“Upper level atmospheric patterns favored warmer air than normally would occur, and we did not get as many cold fronts that would have cooled us off,” said Chris Norcross, meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Caribou.
In Bangor, where records have been kept since 1925, last month was the 11th warmest August, with many warmer Augusts in the 1930s, according to the weather service. The warmest month on record in Bangor was August 1937 when the average temperature was 75.1 degrees.
It was the 10th warmest August overall in Portland, Francis Kredensor, a meteorologist intern with the weather service office in Caribou, said Thursday.
While the first half of the month was normal, a 10-day warm spell brought monthly temperatures steadily upward.
In Caribou, the 10-day stretch of temperatures of more than 80 degrees extended from Aug. 14 to Aug. 23, marking the longest such period recorded since 1939, the earliest year temperature records were kept for the city. The temperature never reached 90 degrees in Caribou, however, with the highest mark being 88 degrees on Aug. 18.
Only one 90-degree day was recorded in Bangor, on Aug. 18. Temperatures generally remained above average from Aug. 23 to the end of the month in northern and eastern Maine.
Meteorologists also said a significant amount of rain fell on Aug. 3, 11, 21 and 26 in that region.
Kredensor said that Millinocket received a total of 5.88 inches of rainfall last month, which is nearly 2 inches above normal for that area.
Some locations across the southeast third of Washington County picked up between 8 and 9 inches of rain on Aug. 26, resulting in flooded areas, according to the weather service.
Bangor received 2.63 inches of rain, which was just under 90 percent of average for the month, the weather service reported.
