Climate Summary for Summer 2004
By: Victor Nouhan, Climate
Focal Point
Overall, northern and eastern
Temperature wise, the summer
opened with one of the coolest June’s in quite some time. However, as the summer progressed, July and
August finished closer to average with no summer month averaging above normal
for the region as a whole. Houlton
experienced a tie for the 8th coolest summer of record and Caribou a
tie for 18th, illustrating the overall cool character of the summer
of 2004.
Most of the area also experienced
above normal rainfall (about 120 to 150 percent of average), but typical of
summer, rainfall was somewhat spotty, as highlighted by Houlton, one of the
few locations to experience slightly below average rainfall. Much of the rainfall this past summer was associated
with stalled frontal systems and remnant moisture from several tropical systems
moving northeast along these frontal systems, especially late July into August.
The heaviest seasonal rainfall tallies
were from the mountainous area of northwest