Not to gloat, lest the scorching spirits of summertime be provoked, but on Saturday the mercury in the District failed for a third successive day to reach 90 degrees.
Washington, D.C
Gray D.C. Saturday seemed a summer landmark
That was two degrees cooler than the 89s of Thursday and Friday, and three degrees below the average high for the date of 90.
In a way, that below average reading seemed a special sign of defiance of Washington’s heat at its most formidable.
Saturday’s 87 came on the 94th anniversary of the date the temperature in Washington reached the fearsome figure of 106 degrees, the highest reading ever recorded in the District.
That 106 degree temperature of July 20 in 1930 had been reached in Washington once before; the first time was on Aug. 6, 1918. Saturday’s 87 was 19 degrees cooler.
By halting its climb at 87 degrees, Saturday’s temperature gave Washington its first string of three successive days in the 80s since the first three days of July.
In another seeming break with this summer’s trends, Saturday also provided the city with a predominantly gray and overcast sky, and even a few raindrops.
Rain has often been sparse in parts of the Washington region this summer, so even the small amount of rain officially measured for the District might loom large.
As of 5 p.m. the official figure was .02 inch. That amount may be nobody’s downpour. But it might at least signal that the mechanisms that produce rainfall have not been scrapped.
A sprinkling of raindrops fell on the city for a couple of hours at least, moistening pavements, creating concentric ripples in puddles and giving the sensation, perhaps, that it would amount to more than it actually did.
The sensation was enhanced by the thick gray clouds that lumbered across the sky, dark billows that seemed destined to unleash great torrents, but in many places, at least, never quite did.
But the very presence of raindrops may have added a distinctive touch to a day that merited recognition on other grounds. For example, Saturday was 30 days since the June 20 solstice, which started astronomical summer.
As a result, Saturday was almost one third of the way from the solstice to the Sept. 22 autumn equinox.
Saturday gave signs of slow erosion in the luxurious expanse of daylight for which summer is known. According to the timeanddate website, sunrise in the District on Saturday was still before 6 a.m. — but only a minute before.
On Sunday, as daylight shrinks by ever larger amounts, sunrise will not be until 6 a.m.
Nevertheless it would seem foolhardy at the least not to remain aware that we are far from finished with summer, and it is far from finished with us.