Weather! Another entry in the record books for this summer

The low pressure area that brought Tuesday’s clouds and cool weather starts to move out; the clouds will stick around on Wednesday.

August 25, 2010; 7:33 AM • by Weather Dan

Take what you’ve seen so far this entire summer, weather-wise, and shake it all up in a snowglobe. The somewhat subtle pattern changes became a bit more noticeable on Tuesday, when Richmond’s high temperature only hit 77 degrees. That breaks a streak of 90 straight days with highs of 80 degrees or higher – the second-longest streak on record. The longest was 95 days, which ended on September 23, 2005.

In the tropics, Hurricane Danielle has been fluctuating, bordering on hurricane status. As of 11pm Tuesday night, Danielle was back at hurricane strength, just barely. The forecast track still keeps the storm well east of the US coast, but the storm’s approach may kick up some larger swells and surf later this week. If you’ve got beach plans this weekend, you should see some good surfing. Well, as good as it gets on the east coast.

Closer to home, we’re saying goodbye to most of the moisture for now. The low pressure area that brought Tuesday’s clouds and cool weather starts to move out; the clouds will stick around on Wednesday. Can’t rule out the chance for a stray shower in the morning as the low pulls away, but precipitation chances and cloudcover should decrease in the latter half of the day. Highs will climb into the low 80s, and overnight lows will drop into the low 70s.

Squirrelcast (vs. Reading, 7:05pm): It’s the final Squirrels game of their penultimate homestand, and the weather should cooperate. Plan on game-time temperatures in the upper 70s under partly cloudy skies, dropping into the low 70s by game’s end.

Another weak cold front approaches the area on Thursday, with minimal effect. Look for highs to climb back to above-average levels, with highs back in the upper 80s. Summer’s not gone quite yet, folks. Plan on partly cloudy skies with very little in terms of precipitation chances, and lows Thursday night in the mid 60s.

The outlook for Friday and this weekend is continued dry and sunny weather, with highs more resembling of what we’ve seen this summer. I’ll have another update on Danielle on Friday, along with the latest Drought Monitor update.

August 25, 2010 7:33 AM 0