Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, July 31, 1993                   TAG: 9307310142
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HOW HOT WAS IT? A LITTLE TOO COLD

And now the weather people tell us we're only going to come in second.

Second, that is, to the record for the hottest July ever.

Seems a July 63 years ago was hotter. By less than a half-degree.

Doesn't that just burn you up?

As of Friday, these were the numbers for summer's statistically most scorching month:

\ Average high temperature: 92 degrees Fahrenheit.

\ Days the temperature has risen to 90 or above: 21.

\ Number of days the high temperature has surpassed the average high: every day but two. (Number of record highs equalled: one.)

\ Inches of rainfall: 1.24. Normal rainfall in July: 3.91.

\ Average temperature overall, which happens to be the number that holds the clout in weather forecasting minds: 80.3.

\ Average temperature in July 1930: 80.6.

"I don't think we're going to break any records," said Harry McIntosh, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Roanoke. "It's gonna be close."

"If they know they suffered through one of the warmest Julys on record," said Chip Knappenberger, a climatologist with the State Climatology Office in Charlottesville, "maybe it makes their suffering . . . for something."

Yeah, right.

To wrest the record away, we need to average between 89 and 90 degrees today.

Ain't gonna happen.

The forecast calls for sunny skies and a high in the low 80s. And we were so close . . .

Disappointments aside, this is what the weather guys say has made the month so sizzling:

The Bermuda high, the South's most prominent summer weather feature, decided to stay put for a longer period than usual, said the weather service's Donato Cacciapaglia. It sat stagnant over the Southeast for most of July, building up heat, while the jet stream kept pummeling folks in the Midwest with rains.

"The jet stream couldn't move," Cacciapaglia said. "It was stuck because of the high pressure dome."

The humidity was up, and temperatures in the first half of the month climbed above 90 for a dozen consecutive days. The heat index - a measure of the two factors - climbed above 100 degrees five days, and reached 104 degrees Wednesday afternoon.

Recently though, the Bermuda system started to drift west. Cooler air from the northwest carried by the jet stream has pinched its bubble, and the pressure-cooker has begun to break up, Cacciapaglia explained. Within the next few weeks, we should be getting some rain and more moderate measures of mercury.

Still, long range forecasts call for above-average temperatures through August into September, the weather service's Mark Cunningham said.

"I can tell you right now, August is going to be hot," he said.

Don't sweat it, Roanoke.