Paducah suffered through its most humid summer on record

The National Weather Service in Paducah has rounded up the numbers for the summer months of June, July and August, and it turns out we lived through a classic version of the adage, "it's not the heat, it's the humidity."

Temperatures were only about a degree above normal on average, and no city in our region hit triple digits on the thermometer. Paducah, Carbondale, Evansville and Cape Girardeau all recorded season highs of 98 on August 19.

But, a brutal combination of heat and humidity from the latter part of June through mid August broke several records for the prolonged duration of the high humidity levels. 

Paducah observed its most humid summer on record in terms of the number of hours with dew points reaching 75 degrees. Dew point is the measure of how much moisture is in the air.

Over the course of an average summer, Paducah usually reaches a very uncomfortable dew point of 75 for about 176 hours. However, during this summer we suffered at that peak for 446 hours. Other cities had it even worse: Cape Girardeau recorded 479 hours, and Poplar Bluff went through an incredible 547 hours of discomfort.

As conditions dried out during late July through August, humidity levels finally lowered dramatically by the latter half of August. 

Late August temperatures also dipped below normal, with some record lows even observed around August 25-27. Paducah observed 8 consecutive days with lows falling below 60 degrees to end the summer, which broke the previous August record of 7 consecutive days set back in 2004 and 1989.

Precipitation varied widely, with some areas showing variations of several inches of rain just a few miles apart. An area in the Missouri Bootheel just across from Fulton County got 6.69 inches for the summer, while a section in Massac County collected 18.04 inches.

June was wetter than normal, but then August experienced a flash drought with many areas experiencing one of their top 5 driest August on record. 

The inconsistency was due in part to a summer-long pattern of slow-moving thunderstorms that contained heavy downpours and trained over the same location, or stalled out with several inches of rain in just an hour or two.

For now into fall, our entire region is experiencing the first levels of drought with no significant rain in sight.

On the Net:

Paducah summer climate summary page