July Weather, the dog days...

Here's the ever popular National Weather Service summary for July, the dog days of summer up here...

NWS MONTHLY WEATHER SUMMARY FOR JULY FOR FAIRBANKS ALASKA...

July 2017 was a warm and slightly dryer than normal month. While no daily temperature or precipitation records were set, wind from a strong weather front on the 23rd knocked down trees and caused power outages in the local area.

The average mean temperature for the month was 65.7 degrees which was 3.2 degrees above the normal and ranked as the 5th warmest of 111 years of record. The warmest temperature for the month was 86 degrees on the the 6th. There have been eleven 80 degrees or warmer days in Fairbanks this summer. Normally there will be around 12 days per summer where the temperature reaches 80 degrees or warmer. The lowest temperature in the month of July was 49 degrees on the 22nd.

1.94 inches of rain fell at the Fairbanks airport in the month of July which was 0.22 inches below the normal rainfall of 2.16 inches and ranked as the 47th wettest of 105 years.

Looking forward to the month of August possible sunshine continues to decrease at nearly 7 minutes per day with daylight hours decreasing from 18 hours and 7 minutes on the 1st to 14 hours and 41 minutes on the 31st. The average daily high temperature decreases from 70 degrees on the 1st to 62 degrees on the 31st. The average low temperature decreases from 50 degrees on the 1st to 41 degrees on the 31st. On average 1.88 inches of rain falls at the Fairbanks Airport during the month of August.

The forecast from the climate prediction center calls for increased chances for above normal temperatures and near normal precipitation.

In other news, we picked up a dog from the local animal shelter a little while back. Pretty shy when we got him, but several boxes of dog biscuits later, he's started to come around. Surprisingly, he didn't seem to know how to jump on his dog house. Most of our dogs spend a good part of the day sitting or sleeping up there. But with some encouragement, he's slowly figuring it out.

The black dog, Tamarack or Tambo-Rambo as he's now known,  is a house dog now. Well at least when he get's excited enough, he'll jump up there. The goal is to teach him to jump up and then sit on the dog house so I can put the dog harness on him. That's how I train when harnessing them up for a dog run. Makes it a lot easier to get the harness on and gives my back a break, not having to bend over so much.