INDIANAPOLIS – Meteorological summer has come to a close. Here’s how Indianapolis performed on temperatures and rainfall.
Rain
June normally sees 4.95″ rainfall. We had 1.18″. July normally sees 4.42″ rainfall. We had 3.10″. That means Indianapolis fell 5.09″ short on rainfall in the first two months of summer. Normal for June and July is 9.37″. We saw instead 4.28″.
August normally sees 3.20” rainfall. We had 4.44” +1.24” surplus. That’s thanks to basically about 60% of that in one day. We recorded 1.99” on August 29th, a new record rainfall.
The summer total: It would be normal for us to get 12.57” of rainfall. Instead, we observed 8.72”. That gives us a -3.85” deficit for summer. This means summer 2022 was:
- The driest summer in nine years.
- We had MORE rain in the month of August than June and July combined.
- We had more rain on August 29th than we had in the entire month of June (almost July too!).
Temperatures
It was a hot summer, no doubt. We went above normal every month. But our average temperatures in August were almost spot on with where they “should” have been. We ended just 0.3 above normal.
- Number of heat waves = 4 (there was a heat wave every month of summer 2022)
- 1) June 13th – 16th
- 2) July 3rd – 6th
- 3) July 20th – 22nd
- 4) August 6th – 8th
- Temperature departures from normal
- June: Normal = 72.5, Average = 74.4, Departure = +1.9
- July: Normal = 75.8, Average = 78. Departure = +2.2
- August: Normal = 74.7, Average = 75.0, Departure = +0.3
We also witnessed some record-breaking warm low temperatures. Here’s an interesting statistic for the month of June. We had three consecutive record warmest *low* temperatures on June 14th (78°), June 15th (75°), June 16th (79°).
On average, for the entire year, we usually see 19 days of temperatures at or above 90 degrees. We accomplished 22 of those just this summer. May and September can add onto those numbers as well.
- 90 degree days = 22
- June 13th (91) Heat wave 1
- June 14th (93) Heat wave 1
- June 15th (92) Heat wave 1
- June 16th (93) Heat wave 1
- June 21st (95)
- June 22nd (94)
- June 30th (92)
- July 1st (95)
- July 3rd (91) Heat wave 2
- July 4th (92) Heat wave 2
- July 5th (99) Heat wave 2
- July 6th (94) Heat wave 2
- July 16th (91)
- July 20th (94) Heat wave 3
- July 21st (90) Heat wave 3
- July 22nd (93) Heat wave 3
- August 3rd (93)
- August 6th (91) Heat wave 4
- August 7th (91) Heat wave 4
- August 8th (92) Heat wave 4
- August 28th (92)
- August 29th (90)
Read More: Indianapolis summer climate report 2022