Short-Lived Summer Break

Now

As a visitor noted in the previous comments, the weather gods have favored the Washington metro area with a brief respite from summer's mugginess. Temperatures around the region in late afternoon are mostly in the mid 80s. Dewpoints, which dipped into the upper 50s for several hours last evening, are still in the relatively comfortable low 60s to 66. The dry conditions allowed last night's official low to dip to 67°, a level which hasn't been seen since July 9; Dulles was 62&deg.

Tonight and Tomorrow

With the humidity starting to creep up, don't expect such an outstanding night as last night, but lows should still be near 71 in town to the mid and low 60s in the cooler 'burbs. Tomorrow will be sunny and a little more humid, highs around 87&deg.

For the extended outlook through the week, see Jason's post below.

Tropical Topics

The National Hurricane Center is keeping its eye (so to speak) on a stormy area in the western Gulf of Mexico and Bay of Campeche. Some buoys in the area have reported gusts to 40 or 50 mph, and the future upper level winds are looking favorable for development, so this area could become tropically depressed in the next day or two.

Recent Precipitation

Despite the possibility of severe storms, Saturday's precipitation was fairly minimal in the immediate area. Amounts were more significant south of the Beltway and east of Baltimore. Since the copious rains of the first week this month, National Airport has recorded just slightly over 1" in the following nearly 3 weeks. The overall total so far, however, is just 0.1" less than the long-term climatological average for the whole month.

24-hour precipitation totals ending 8am yesterday, from National Weather Service.