A Summer of Some Unusual Ups and Downs

The books close Monday on the three calendar months that many think of as summer, a period that this year embraced the unusual in temperature and rainfall before ending up near the overall norm.

Meanwhile, Sunday, which ended the last weekend of the June-to-August period known as meteorological summer, seemed a delight.

"What a great day outside!" A. Camden Walker wrote on The Washington Post's Capital Weather Gang blog. It was sunny and bright, comfortably warm and pleasantly dry.

Even a much cooler day on Monday would leave August with an average temperature about 2 1/2 degrees above normal, making it this summer's hot month. July, more than two degrees below average, was the cool month. June, less than a degree below normal, as measured at Reagan National Airport, was the average month.

August has had 12 days in which temperatures reached 90 degrees or more. July had seven, June two. The high for the year was 97 on Aug. 10.

June was wet, with rainfall almost three inches above normal. July rainfall was more than 2.5 inches less than average. August rain has been less than an inch below normal. Total summer rain was well above nine inches, a little less than normal.