Yet another warmer-than-average summer in the Maritimes

Another summer in the books!

While this summer was certainly wetter than the past few, it was yet another warmer-than-average season across most of the Maritimes. 

We saw hot days, warm nights and plenty of humid days as well.

When looking at temperatures over the past decade for meteorological summer — June, July and August — near or warmer-than-average temperatures have certainly been commonplace.

What we haven't had much of, are the months where the temperature was colder than the 30-year average, based on 1981 to 2010.  

In fact, colder-than-average summer months have been so rare over the past decade that we can easily single them out.

For parts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, the only summer months where temperatures were 1 C or more below average were June 2015 and June 2018. 

This past July also averaged below the 30-year normal in most of New Brunswick, P.E.I., and in Sydney, Cape Breton.

Sydney is the only Maritime location to record four below-average months out of the past 30 summer months.

But that's it.

The rest of those 30 summer months have been either near average, which is within 1 C of the 1981-2010 normal, or warmer than average. 

Warmer along the coasts

Similar to what we've experienced during the winter months over the past decade, warmer-than-average ocean temperatures are clearly having an influence.

At the Shearwater station near Halifax, as well as in Yarmouth and Saint John, even those coldest summer months mentioned above averaged within 1 C of the 30-year normal.

Those three coastal stations didn't experience a single colder-than-average summer month over the past decade. 

In fact, the last time the Shearwater station recorded a colder-than-average summer month was July 2009.

What is even more remarkable about July 2009 is that when I went digging deeper into the stats, I found that it's the only summer month at Shearwater to finish 1 C or more colder than the 30-year average since June 1988.

Looking Ahead

While fall officially begins Wednesday afternoon, meteorological fall is well underway and is off to a warmer-than-average start here in September. 

Long-range outlooks for the next month or so continue to show warmer-than-average temperatures through the month of October.