The best weather week of the year

There's no shortage of nice days in Michiana, but stringing them together for long stretches can be rare. A state of constant change in the weather is part of living in the Midwest. You've likely heard the old saying " If you don't like the weather here, just wait an hour ( or a day)". This first week of August stands-out, for quite simply being perfect.

"Perfect" might be a very subjective term and may not be everyone's ideal weather ( especially for summer) or favorite weather. Perfect weather in this context is being defined as: Fair weather, that requires very little for most people to feel comfortable, no extra clothing and no need for heating or air conditioning. Looking into the record books, we searched for days with highs 75° to 85°, lows 65° or cooler and no rain. The weather is warm,not hot and lows less that 65° not only describes good sleeping weather but serves as a proxy for assuring low humidity as well. 

While these days may not be hard to come by most of the spring, summer and fall, putting five of more of these "perfect" days in a row is rare. Over the past five years we only average one or two of these weeks a year (Fig 1). July 19th to 23rd was one of these weeks and this week, August 3rd through 9th will make two. The forecast seven day stretch of "perfect" weather this week would make for the second longest stretch of such days in the past 5 years (Fig 2).

The chance for rain Monday, August 10th will likely end this stretch of perfect weather but a rare third week of perfect weather looks to be in the forecast after that. 

We will be looking further back into the records to see how rare an event like this, until then enjoy.