Somehow it's already August. That means we can look ahead to what the eighth month of the year typically brings to Michiana. Your average August in South Bend sees high temperatures range from 82° on the first to 79° by the the last day of the month. That's not a huge spread, but it is significant because we see our average daily highs drop below 80°! Overnight lows usually fall into the lower 60s throughout the month. This may sound odd, but August is tied for the 3rd-wettest month of the year with 10 days seeing measurable rain and monthly rainfall totaling 3.8", on average.
Despite the 10 days with rain that August brings, there are typically 21 days with total cloud cover below 70%. In other words, 21 days feature either an entirely sunny, a mostly sunny or a partly sunny sky. So, despite it being a rather wet month, a good amount of sunshine is observed throughout the month. Unfortunately, it does not stay sunny as late by the time we get to the end of August.
The sun sets at 9:02 PM on August 1st, but sets at 8:19 PM (!!) on August 31st. Even more, South Bend's total daylight drops from nearly 14 and a half hours on the 1st to just over 13 hours by the 31st as fall seems to rapidly approach. Soak up those later sunsets while we've got 'em!
So we know all about what a typical August brings to Michiana. How about a few August extremes? South Bend has reached the century mark 11 times in the month, with the hottest temperature ever recorded in August being 105°. Believe or not, the mercury has fallen to 40° on multiple occasions. Low temperatures in the 40s are not all that unheard of in parts of Michiana during the second half of August. That's because we tend to get shots of cooler air from Canada as fall-like cold fronts and low pressure systems swing through the Midwest and Great Lakes. And, sometimes those frontal systems can lead to severe weather outbreaks like the one seen across the Hoosier State back in 2016. That one featured 11 tornado touchdowns in Indiana alone, including two massive EF3 twisters that ravaged parts of Kokomo and parts of rural Fort Wayne.
