How was the weather in terms of crop production, and has it been a good year for farmers?
If you spent a lot of time at the Atlantic beaches this past summer, you were probably griping about the cool and wet weather. For only the second time in the past 100 years, not a single 90 degree F day was recorded during July in New York City. The July average daily temperature was about 4 degrees F below normal, and rainfall was approximately 2.5 inches above normal. Just last year, there were 18 days over 90 F and two days above 100 F! In the Washington D.C area, this was the coolest July since 1918 and the coolest and wettest summer since 1972. In Baltimore, it was the coolest summer at BWI Airport since it opened in 1953. Only once did the thermometer crack the 90 F mark in Washington during July – that hadn’t happened since 1906. Last year there were 22 days above 90. The average daily temperature was 5.5 F degrees below what is typically expected, and the rainfall was more than 2 inches above normal. While in the summer of 1999, sprinklers and air conditioners were hot commodi
