After a wetter-than-normal year in 2020, Juneau is seeing more typical summer weather this year according to the National Weather Service, with temperatures regularly reaching 70 degrees or higher in July.
There were nine days in July where temperatures in Juneau reached 70 or higher, said meteorologist Ben Linstid, who works for the NWS in Juneau. That total includes Saturday.
“This year in particular has been close to normal average temperature,” Linstid told the Empire Saturday. “It’s typical for this time of year to have that many days with temperatures of 70 or higher.”
Certain weather data for July such as average temperatures is still being analyzed, Linstid said, but the summer’s weather didn’t seem unusual for the region. Last year, was the second-wettest on record, he said, as were the first six months of 2021.
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The NWS uses the weather at the airport as a baseline for Juneau, and according to Linstid the hottest day of the month was July, 20, when temperatures in the Mendenhall Valley reached 77 degrees. Rainfall at the airport is about half of the month’s average, Linstid said, this year receiving about 2.5 inches as opposed to the typical five.
The Lower 48 has seen record-high temperatures this summer, and Friday, the NWS issued a heat warning for certain areas of the Pacific Northwest. Some studies have blamed emissions-fueled climate change as the cause of warmer weather.
But it was difficult to attribute year-to-year weather to a single cause, Linstid said, and it was normal to see annual variation.
“We won’t know until we have all the data,” Linstid said.
• Contact reporter Peter Segall at psegall@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @SegallJnuEmpire.
