THAT was a HOT Month-
But It Is Summer
July was one of the hottest Julys on record here in the Twin Cities. For those of you who think we don't have summer up this way, consider this. At my front yard thermometer we had:

2 days at 100 or above;
16 days in the 90s;
12 days in the 80s
only 1 day with the high in the 70s.

We had a day when the dewpoint was at a decidedly very high 80! The average high temperature for the month was 91 and the average low was 67. But, hey, that's summer.

Actually it's been 17 years since we have had this many days at 90 or above, although they tell me that it was hotter a few years ago.

Which brings me to the big question.... So What? Why is it that we spend fo much time dealing with weather. It takes up a lot of time on a nightly newscast. Locally here it is about two and a half minutes- a lot of air time.

Especially when we can't do a single thing about it.

Or perhaps that is why we spend so much time with it. It may be the ultimate example of our human powerlessness, our ultimate inability to do anything about our lives and our fate. We can be as "weatherwise" as we want, we still have a hard time doing anything but playing the odds with our forecasts.

One last comment- I actually like the hot weather. When you consider that our average low temperature for the year through yesterday is only 7 degrees above freezing and it becomes clear to me that this fleeting moment of heat will be but a memory in the not too distant future.

So, sweat away.