August 2026

[gravitylover]

Nice little storm just dropped a quick 3/4". 

[RockawayRowdies]

Booming lightning woke me up here in Rockaway borough

[Snowlover11]

Congrats LI.

[LibertyBell]

6 hours ago, winterwx21 said:

Too bad it's cloudy here now. Terrible timing. No use going outside. Hopefully we'll have better luck with the Geminid meteor shower in december. 

Saw 36 meteors including some fireballs between 2 am and 6 am. I wasn't outside more than 5 to 10 minutes at a time because it was just too cold. Which is why I never see the Geminids unless I'm outside doing something else.

I saw one meteor almost as soon as I opened my balcony door at 2 am and the sky was more than 50 percent clear.  I saw another 3 a few minutes after that when I brought out my 2x54 Sky Rover binoculars.  More on these later. But then it clouded up again and I could even see lightning in the distance. I wish I'd gone out there before 2 am. The next period of clearing started at 3:30 and between then and 4 am I saw another 11 meteors for a total of 15. This is when one of the brightest fireballs I have ever seen happened in the Western sky followed by a dark tail of smoke and dust that stayed in the air for a few seconds after the fireball was gone. That tail of dark smoke was about half an inch thick and it looked like a plane on fire that was about to crash to the ground! This was so much more exciting than any thunder storm could ever be! There were a few more really bright meteors after that that I could see right through the clouds, these Galilean binoculars can not only sharply define the texture of clouds (like waves in the ocean) as long as the clouds aren't very thick they can actually see through the clouds and show thousands of stars and even star clusters that lie beyond them. I could see stars and even meteors right through flashes of silent lightning! Between 4 am and 5 am I saw another 20 bright meteors including some slow ones that I watches for 30 seconds or longer as they moved from one part of the sky to the other. So 35 shooting stars by 5. And then the sky brightened up around 5 am and the only object visible was Jupiter in the southwestern sky. The birds had even woken up and started to sing and I was ready to get up and go inside when lo and behold a bright fireball lit up the western sky right next to Jupiter at 5:30 am! This was a fireball just as bright as the one I saw much earlier but this was visible in the bright blue morning sky! This is the second latest I've ever seen one, during my first Perseids viewing back in 1986 exactly 40 years ago I saw a bright fireball with a long lingering tail pass to the north of me on Long Island at around 5:45 am. In each of these cases the fireballs were brighter than Venus! This was shooting star number 36 and I'm hoping tonight has a repeat performance as the Perseids have a two night peak.

By the way did you notice there was a solar eclipse yesterday? I noticed color changes like we usually get during a partial eclipse between 1 and 2 in the afternoon which surprised me because the sun was only 9 percent covered. It was a total solar eclipse in Greenland. Iceland, Portugal and Spain. 

 

[LibertyBell]

16 hours ago, Mr Senior said:

I desperately need the A.C. on all summer. I'm not comfortable in the heat at all, so my electric bill is high in the summer. I actually do much better in the cold.

What kind of AC do you have? Last year's summer was very hot and I ran it all the time too but my electric bill was never more than 200 a month. I used just one 5000 BTU window AC. I didn't care how hot the rest of the house was because I didn't spend much time in the other rooms. 

This house is much cooler because it's well insulated and shaded by trees and I've only ran the AC three times, twice in July and once so far in August.

[LibertyBell]

16 hours ago, MarcmmKU said:

Also as bluewave says, summers have been more front loaded as of late. The last seriously hot late summer was back in 2023 with a run of mid 90s the first week of september.

September is an extended summer month even when it doesn't hit 90 it's still extremely warm and humid. The first half of September is generally warmer than the first half of June and is still part of summer. While the first half of June is not.

[LibertyBell]

16 hours ago, MarcmmKU said:

Climo does start fighting back hard. Late august and september are the time of year with the steepest declines in the highs. Yes 90s can happen but it gets significantly harder than in june and july. Also interesting take that anything less than 90s and upper 80s is "cold". Are you a reptilian? 

First half of September is generally warmer than the first half of June. I've had lows in the 40s in the first half of June a few times.

The high the last two days has been in the upper 70s here.  That's okay.  It was in the mid 60s here and windy last night and it felt cold viewing the Perseids.  I kept coming inside for 10 minutes each time  after spending 10 minutes outside each time between 2 and 6.

[LibertyBell]

18 hours ago, BobbyHolikWillFindYou said:

Partial eclipse at 1:54pm!

The landscape had that strange dusky orangeish color between 1 and 2 pm which surprised me because we were nowhere near the total eclipse area we only had 9 percent coverage.

I didn't take any pictures of it or the Perseids because we were in and out of clouds but the view through my new 2x54 constellation binoculars felt like looking at an astroimage live!

[NEG NAO]

High Dewpoints also returning by Sunday - Flooding rains on the table ???

[MANDA]

1 minute ago, NEG NAO said:

High Dewpoints returning by Sunday

Gotta keep an eye on this.  Depending on synoptic setup could be local drenchers which many places don't need or want.

Local flooding threat.

[MANDA]

Picked up another .42" of rainfall from an overnight T-Shower.  Loud thunder and a burst of heavy rain.  No wind and just a flash or two of lightning.  Total rainfall month so far: 4.98".

[MANDA]

North Fork of L.I. got a local drenching last night.

[TWCCraig]

Thankfully not too thick and mostly elevated, but a noticeable band of smoke is moving through the area today from western wildfires

HRRR for 2pm today: (Seems like the thickest already passed)

[bluewave]

Continued improvement for our area with drought expansion for the rest of the CONUS.

 

[Prue11]

Heard a bunch of thunder and some lightning but no measurable rain here 

[WestBabylonWeather]

Eastern tip of Long Island got quite a bit of rain last night. Reminds me of that one snowstorm last winter where they got like 10” out there with barely a flurry in babylon 

[steve392]

Had nice storm around 2am. Got 1/4" of rain. 

Warm out but a cool breeze making things tolerable. 

[Dan76]

4 hours ago, NEG NAO said:

High Dewpoints also returning by Sunday - Flooding rains on the table ???

DP's still 70 here

[winterwx21]

6 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

Saw 36 meteors including some fireballs between 2 am and 6 am. I wasn't outside more than 5 to 10 minutes at a time because it was just too cold. Which is why I never see the Geminids unless I'm outside doing something else.

I saw one meteor almost as soon as I opened my balcony door at 2 am and the sky was more than 50 percent clear.  I saw another 3 a few minutes after that when I brought out my 2x54 Sky Rover binoculars.  More on these later. But then it clouded up again and I could even see lightning in the distance. I wish I'd gone out there before 2 am. The next period of clearing started at 3:30 and between then and 4 am I saw another 11 meteors for a total of 15. This is when one of the brightest fireballs I have ever seen happened in the Western sky followed by a dark tail of smoke and dust that stayed in the air for a few seconds after the fireball was gone. That tail of dark smoke was about half an inch thick and it looked like a plane on fire that was about to crash to the ground! This was so much more exciting than any thunder storm could ever be! There were a few more really bright meteors after that that I could see right through the clouds, these Galilean binoculars can not only sharply define the texture of clouds (like waves in the ocean) as long as the clouds aren't very thick they can actually see through the clouds and show thousands of stars and even star clusters that lie beyond them. I could see stars and even meteors right through flashes of silent lightning! Between 4 am and 5 am I saw another 20 bright meteors including some slow ones that I watches for 30 seconds or longer as they moved from one part of the sky to the other. So 35 shooting stars by 5. And then the sky brightened up around 5 am and the only object visible was Jupiter in the southwestern sky. The birds had even woken up and started to sing and I was ready to get up and go inside when lo and behold a bright fireball lit up the western sky right next to Jupiter at 5:30 am! This was a fireball just as bright as the one I saw much earlier but this was visible in the bright blue morning sky! This is the second latest I've ever seen one, during my first Perseids viewing back in 1986 exactly 40 years ago I saw a bright fireball with a long lingering tail pass to the north of me on Long Island at around 5:45 am. In each of these cases the fireballs were brighter than Venus! This was shooting star number 36 and I'm hoping tonight has a repeat performance as the Perseids have a two night peak.

By the way did you notice there was a solar eclipse yesterday? I noticed color changes like we usually get during a partial eclipse between 1 and 2 in the afternoon which surprised me because the sun was only 9 percent covered. It was a total solar eclipse in Greenland. Iceland, Portugal and Spain. 

 

Thanks for posting a recap! I'm glad you had good luck seeing some nice meteors out there in PA.

Here it was a complete bust with cloudy skies all throughout the overnight hours. The peak was last night, but as you said there's another chance tonight. There's a pretty good 3 day window -- the night before and night after are usually 60 to 70% of the peak night, so still pretty good. Unfortunately we're expecting a good amount of clouds here tonight, but we'll see. If it's just partly cloudy I'll go out there tonight. It was pretty cloudy here the night of the 11th into the 12th too, so very bad luck during the 3 day period here. 

I know the Perseid is the most popular shower of the year because it's during the warm summer, but the Geminid shower in December is actually the best shower of the year -- slightly bigger than the Perseid shower. So I'll deal with being out there in cold weather if we have clear skies, especially after having such bad luck last night. 

[Keith Central PA]

7 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

September is an extended summer month even when it doesn't hit 90 it's still extremely warm and humid. The first half of September is generally warmer than the first half of June and is still part of summer. While the first half of June is not.

Isnt September a part of Summer?.Fall arrives the 3rd week of the month.

[Stormlover74]

58 minutes ago, Keith Central PA said:

Isnt September a part of Summer?.Fall arrives the 3rd week of the month.

Meteorological summer is June, July and August while the hottest part of summer average wise is approximately June 10th to September 10th

[Poker2015]

8 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

Saw 36 meteors including some fireballs between 2 am and 6 am. I wasn't outside more than 5 to 10 minutes at a time because it was just too cold. Which is why I never see the Geminids unless I'm outside doing something else.

I saw one meteor almost as soon as I opened my balcony door at 2 am and the sky was more than 50 percent clear.  I saw another 3 a few minutes after that when I brought out my 2x54 Sky Rover binoculars.  More on these later. But then it clouded up again and I could even see lightning in the distance. I wish I'd gone out there before 2 am. The next period of clearing started at 3:30 and between then and 4 am I saw another 11 meteors for a total of 15. This is when one of the brightest fireballs I have ever seen happened in the Western sky followed by a dark tail of smoke and dust that stayed in the air for a few seconds after the fireball was gone. That tail of dark smoke was about half an inch thick and it looked like a plane on fire that was about to crash to the ground! This was so much more exciting than any thunder storm could ever be! There were a few more really bright meteors after that that I could see right through the clouds, these Galilean binoculars can not only sharply define the texture of clouds (like waves in the ocean) as long as the clouds aren't very thick they can actually see through the clouds and show thousands of stars and even star clusters that lie beyond them. I could see stars and even meteors right through flashes of silent lightning! Between 4 am and 5 am I saw another 20 bright meteors including some slow ones that I watches for 30 seconds or longer as they moved from one part of the sky to the other. So 35 shooting stars by 5. And then the sky brightened up around 5 am and the only object visible was Jupiter in the southwestern sky. The birds had even woken up and started to sing and I was ready to get up and go inside when lo and behold a bright fireball lit up the western sky right next to Jupiter at 5:30 am! This was a fireball just as bright as the one I saw much earlier but this was visible in the bright blue morning sky! This is the second latest I've ever seen one, during my first Perseids viewing back in 1986 exactly 40 years ago I saw a bright fireball with a long lingering tail pass to the north of me on Long Island at around 5:45 am. In each of these cases the fireballs were brighter than Venus! This was shooting star number 36 and I'm hoping tonight has a repeat performance as the Perseids have a two night peak.

By the way did you notice there was a solar eclipse yesterday? I noticed color changes like we usually get during a partial eclipse between 1 and 2 in the afternoon which surprised me because the sun was only 9 percent covered. It was a total solar eclipse in Greenland. Iceland, Portugal and Spain. 

 

Was planning on hanging around Joshua Tree National Park a couple hours after sunset a couple nights ago, but had to get to Vegas by midnight to return the rental car. 

Did see the sunset from Keys View overlooking the Coachella Valley which was cool. Then stopped on the side of the road in the middle of the Mohave Desert so my son could pee. Stars were amazing and did see a bright meteor in those couple minutes.

[bluewave]

On 8/12/2026 at 2:39 PM, MarcmmKU said:

Also as bluewave says, summers have been more front loaded as of late. The last seriously hot late summer was back in 2023 with a run of mid 90s the first week of september.

While the major 100° heat has been mostly focused in late June and July in recent years, September and October have been warming at a faster rate than the summer. 

NY Coastal Climate Division 1981-2025

Jun….+0.4 per decade

Jul….+0.8 per decade

Aug…+0.6 per decade

Sep….+1.0 per decade

Oct…..+1.0 per decade

[SACRUS]

Just touched 90 here

 

[SACRUS]

Records:

Highs:

EWR: 102 (2005)
NYC: 99 (2005)
LGA: 100 (2005)
JFK: 92 (2005)


Lows:

EWR: 55 (1950)
NYC: 55 (1930)
LGA: 56 (1979)
JFK: 56 (1979)

Historical:

 

1795: A major hurricane only ten days after a previous storm struck North Carolina and produced high winds as far inland as Winston-Salem. At Monticello, near Charlottesville, Thomas Jefferson noted that the loss of soil from the heavy rain thus far that month could be "modestly estimated at a year's rent."
(David Ludlum)A "powerful torrent of rain" deluged Petersburg; creeks were at their highest point of the past 70 years.The second hurricane of the year caused flooding in the Virginia and North Carolina area contributing to a very wet summer. (Ref. for Hurricane of 1795)

1831 - The Great Barbados Hurricane was an intense Category 4 hurricane that left cataclysmic damage across the Caribbean and Louisiana in 1831. From August 11 through the 13, Bermudians were amazed to see the sun with a decidedly blue appearance, giving off an eerie blue light when it shone into rooms and other enclosed places. Ships at sea as far west as Cape Hatteras reported that "their white sails appeared a light blue colour." A month later it was learned that the astounding blue sunlight had coincided with a terrible hurricane that caused 1,477 people to lose their lives. It was assumed that the hurricane was intensive enough to cause an unusual disturbance in the higher atmospheric strata, and refraction, diffraction or absorption of light rays, to produce the blue reflection. Because the sun appeared bluish-green, Nat Turner took this as the final signal and began a slave rebellion a week later on August 21.

1913: Indianapolis, IN received 1.30 inches of rain in 15 minutes, 1.98 inches in 30 minutes and 2.68 inches in one hour. (Ref. Wilson Wx. History)

1919 - High winds and heavy rain struck the Middle Atlantic Coast Region. In New Jersey, winds gusted to 60 mph at Atlantic City, and nine inches of rain fell at Tuckerton. The wind and rain leveled crops and stripped trees of fruit causing several million dollars damage. (David Ludlum)

1935: A severe thunderstorm collapsed the roof of the B&O Hall of Transportation Building in Baltimore, MD which housed the most important collection of railroad models, pictures, exhibits and stock in the world. Many old, fragile locomotives like the Tom Thumb and Thomas Jefferson steam engines escape destruction when the largest locomotives lined up in the center of the building acted to hold up the collapsing roof. The collection would again be damaged by a collapsing roof in 2003 when the snowstorm dumped a record 28.2 inches of snow in four days, including 21.8 inches on February 16th. (Ref. Wilson Wx. History)

1953: At 10 p.m. on the 13th, Hurricane Barbara struck the North Carolina coast between Morehead City and Ocracoke. The storm then moved north and northeast, before going out to sea just south of Norfolk. Winds reached 63 mph with gusts to 76 mph at Norfolk. Winds at Cape Henry were sustained at 72 mph. (Ref. Hurricanes Late 20century - Hurricane Barbara)

1955: Hurricane Connie dumped 5 to 8 inches of rain on Southeastern Pennsylvania, ending a drought that had been plaguing the area. (Ref. AccWeather Weather History)Boston, Massachusetts area had 25 people killed by Hurricane Connie. (Ref. NOAA Boston Weather Events)

1977: Lightning strike near Indian point, NY triggered massive 24 hour power blackout in NY City. (Ref. Wilson Wx. History)

1978: Four inches of snow at fell at Salmon, ND. (Ref. AccWeather Weather History)
 

1980 - The afternoon high at New York City was just 89 degrees. But there were fifteen days of 90 degree heat during the month, their hottest August of record. (The Weather Channel)

1985 - Hail larger than golf balls, driven by 70 mph winds, moved down crops, stripped trees, and broke windows, near Logan KS. Road graders cleared three foot drifts of hail on Kansas Highway 9 east of Logan. (The Weather Channel)

1987 - Thunderstorms deluged the Central Gulf Coast States with torrential rains. Thunderstorms in Mississippi drenched Marion County with up to 15 inches of rain during the morning hours, with 12.2 inches reported at Columbia. Floodwaters swept cars away in the Lakeview subdivision of Columbia when the the Lakeview Dam broke. Flash flooding caused more than three million dollars damage in Marion County. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)

1988 - A dozen cities in the northeastern U.S. reported record high temperatures for the date. Lansing MI reported a record 35 days of 90 degree weather for the year, Detroit MI reported a record 37 days of 90 degree heat for the year, and Williamsport PA reported a record 38 days of 90 degree weather for the year. (The National Weather Summary)

1989 - Thunderstorms developing in a tropical airmass over the northeastern U.S. soaked Connecticut and Massachusetts with four to eight inches of rain over the weekend, between the 11th and 13th of the month. Hartford CT received 7.70 inches of rain. (The National Weather Summary) (Storm Data)

1991 - Stockton, California received 0.05 inch of rainfall on this day. Since 1949, this is the only measured rainfall in Stockton on August 13th.

1995: Chicago, IL was in the midst of a four day heat wave where temperatures climbed into the middle 90s and lows were in the mid to upper 70s. The low temperature of 77° on this date tied for the record high minimum. Humidity was high and 27 deaths were attributed to the heat wave. The majority was in the Chicago area. (Ref. Wilson Wx. History)

2004: Hurricane Charley unexpectedly underwent rapid strengthening, jumping from a Category 2 to a powerful Category 4 storm in a few hours, while at the same time taking a sharp turn to the northeast. Charley made landfall as a Category 4 hurricane near Punta Gorda, Florida. Although the storm caused serious damage, much of this was limited to a narrow swath associated with the hurricane's eye wall. Charley was a very fast-moving, compact storm, and so much of its damage was attributed to high winds rather than heavy rain. Charley remained a hurricane across the entire Florida peninsula and passed through Orlando and near Daytona Beach. (Ref. More Information on Hurricane Charley)

2014 - An official, New York State 24 hour precipitation record was set at Islip, NY on August 12-13 when 13.57" of rain fell.

2014: In the New York City metro area early (Wednesday August 13, 2014) more than a foot of rain fell in just a few hours, causing extensive flooding on Long Island. As of 10 a.m. ET, Islip, New York had received 13.27 inches of rain, which set a state record for the heaviest 24-hour rainfall total in state history. This broke the previous record of 11.6 inches, set at Tannersville, New York in August of 2011 during Hurricane Irene. NY state record for the heaviest 24-hour rainfall(Ref.BY ANDREW FREEDMAN)
Midwest and Mid-Atlantic Flooding: August 11-13. Five inches of rain in 24 hours inundated Detroit, Michigan, submerging cars up to their roofs, in one of the city's worst flooding episodes on record. Flooding also hit the Baltimore, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., areas, and Islip, Long Island, New York, measured 13.26 inches in 24 hours, setting a new state record. Economic costs exceeded $2 billion.Ref. (Weatherwise MAY-JUNE 2015, page 14)

[TriPol]

Can't wait for Autumn. These dew points are horrible.

[Stormlover74]

Sunday looks like the next heavy rain threat