Residents say goodbye to a long, hot August

Wiping sweat from his brow, David Murphy stopped a couple of minutes to talk about a hot topic on the minds of many Shoals residents these days.

Murphy said this had to be the hottest August he has seen during his 30 years in the landscaping business.

And he's right.

This was the first August since record keeping began in 1893 that the high temperature in the Shoals topped 90 degrees on all 31 days. The previous record for consecutive above 90-degree days was 24, posted in 1954 and 1980.

"I've seen some hot summers, but nothing like this," said Murphy, an owner of Murphy Brothers Landscaping and Nursery in Florence.

"The average maximum temperature was 98.8 degrees," Boyd said. "All those hundred degrees-plus days we had really drove up the average. The

previous record high for August was 94.2 degrees set in 1980."

August, which ended Friday, produced many record-high temperatures in the Shoals. Records for individual dates were broken or tied on eight days. A high of 107 degrees on Aug. 15 was the second hottest temperature ever recorded in the Shoals. Only a 108 degree high on Aug. 8, 1930, was hotter.

Robert Boyd, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service office in Huntsville, said August 2007 will go down as the hottest August ever in the Shoals.

Boyd said drought conditions played a roll in the record-setting heat.

He said dry air heats more easily than moist air. The normally stifling humidity in the Shoals typically holds temperatures below 100 degrees during the summer. With little rain and low humidity in the Shoals this August, triple-digit temperatures were commonplace. The high temperature was 100 degrees or hotter on 16 days during the month.

A 12-day stretch of triple-digit highs between Aug. 7 and Aug. 18 tied a record set in July 1980 for consecutive days of 100 degrees or hotter temperatures in the Shoals.

Long-range forecasts call for September to have slightly above normal temperatures, Boyd said. Normal highs for the Shoals in early September are in the upper 80s, falling to around 79 degrees by the end of the month.

Boyd said forecasts call for September to be rainy, with drought conditions expected this winter.

A dry winter would likely be a cold one, he said. Just as dry air heats up more in the summer, it also cools more readily in the winter.

After such a brutal summer, Murphy said he would not mind a cold winter.

"I'd like to see about 12 inches of snow," he said. "After a summer like this, we deserve a really good snow."

Dennis Sherer can be reached at 740-5746 or dennis.sherer@timesdaily.com.