Over the past few months, I have mentioned how this year as a whole has featured 8 out of 9 months of cooler than average temperatures in North Central Wisconsin.  Not only was the summer a cool one locally, but also this was the case across a good chunk of the country.  Here's the map showing the rank from coldest to warmest by state for meteorological summer (June-August).

For the Badger State it ended up being the 7th coldest summer on record with many other states in the Plains and western Great Lakes following suit.  The reason for this was a persistent trough of low pressure that for many weeks of the season was stationed near Hudson Bay in Canada.  A northwesterly flow kept the cool air coming during most of the season.  On the flip side, Washington, Texas and Florida had much warmer than average temps.  Meantime in the rainfall department, it was one of those set ups that depended on where you were in the country and how many storms decided to roll in that direction.  Here's the map for the summer.

Much of New England and Idaho certainly got their share of rain while there was quite the drop off in North Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin, compared to our neighbors to the south.

In other news, as expected the Tropical Atlantic has been fairly quiet.  Granted mid August did feature an uptick in storms, but the peak of the season is during this stretch of September.  Outside of Hurricane Fred, which was not too far off the Africa coast last week before falling apart, and a non-tropical low that dumped rain in the Mid-Atlantic and New England last weekend, weather conditions have not been to favorable for tropical development.  That's not to say there won't be storms that spin up between now and mid-October, but thanks to El Nino, the peak of the season so far has been a snoozer. 

The weather pattern around here has also been more typical of southern California that perhaps Wisconsin with a good deal of sunshine and highs in the 70s or 80s.  There really isn't much chance of rain in the forecast through the end of the week as one ridge of high pressure gets replaced by another.  The best opportunity for showers or a storm could come with a cold front early next week.  In the meantime, it's a great time to be outside on a daily basis...perhaps even on vacation here at home.