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1 of 3 Premium Clicks used this month SUBSCRIBE Print + Online Subscriber Activation | Register x Forgot Password | Need an Account? subscribe | newsletter | deals Classifieds Jobs Autos Real Estate FEATURED » NEWS NOW Ashland Calendar, Friday, July 10 ... More thunderstorms expected ... Stay out of the creek, officials warn ... Ashland Calendar, Friday, July 10 ... More thunderstorms expected ... Stay out of the creek, officials warn ... WEATHER OR NOT Weather or Not: June in Redding — er, I mean Ashland Comment By Doyle Hirsch For the Tidings DailyTidings.com By Doyle Hirsch For the Tidings Posted Jul. 7, 2015 at 7:07 PM By Doyle Hirsch For the Tidings Posted Jul. 7, 2015 at 7:07 PM » Social News Now, generally, if I can help it, I don't like writing columns about individual months. I prefer seasonal summaries since individual months just don't have enuff data. But June 2015 was so extraordinary that it's getting an article all by itself. By extraordinary, I don't mean in a good way. June began fine — cool and with a little precipitation. But those first two days were the only ones that were below average. All the rest of the 28 days were dry and above the seasonal norm, often exceedingly so. The newspaper said that the monthly average was 69.5 degrees, beating the old record of 68.4 degrees. My average was considerably higher at 72.1 degrees. I don't know where the official averages are recorded, but if it's at substantially less altitude, say like the ScienceWorks Museum, then the official nighttime temps will be quite a bit lower. That might account for the discrepancy. As hot as the daytime temps were, I didn't record any record daytime highs. But at night it was a different story. I had 13 record overnight lows in the month, including a 73 degree reading on June 27 which was the warmest overnight low I've recorded at this location (since 1985). Incidentally, Redding's June average low is 75.5 (Medford's June 2015 average was 74.8 degrees). And Redding is one of the hottest places in the USA. A wet June would have been a big help in lowering the extreme fire danger (as of this writing, July 4, the fire danger is ridiculously rated as "high" — it should be "extreme"; these guys must be connected to the DEQ in some manner, as they chronically undershoot how bad the air quality is). But that didn't happen. Light precip fell on the first two days of the month totaling .48 inch. But none fell after that. The average June precip is .90, so we had about 53 eprcent of normal. June isn't a very wet month but it's gotten drier over the years. The previous decade averaged 1.23 inches of precip in June, but this decade only .90 inch, or a 28 percent drop. July has shown a similar decrease. I don't keep monthly averages so I can only compare this June with the last one, but I can imagine it was pretty much normal. So here are the stats comparing this June with last year: • Highest temp 2015 - 98° (6/26, 6/27); 2014 - 92° (6/30) • Lowest temp 2015 - 51° (6/4, 6/12); 2014 - 43° (6/17) • No. of days 90° or above 2015 - 9; 2014 - 1 • Average High temp 2015 - 85.7°; 2014 - 78° • Average low temp 2015 - 58.5°; 2014 - 52.3° • Average overall temp 2015 - 72.1; 2014 - 65.2 • Precip 2015 - .48"; 2014 - .73" A couple of days before writing this, I noticed that the thermometer in my house read 93 degrees (I don't have air-conditioning) and I thought back to stories my Mom told me about growing up in Winkelman, Ariz. My Grandfather was a miner who worked first in the Anaconda copper mine in Butte, Mont. (where my Mom was born) and was then transferred to the copper smelter at Winkelman, going from one of the coldest places in the U.S. to one of the hottest. The company housing was at best substandard, but cheap. And you didn't complain because this was the height of the Great Depression. With temps routinely over 110 degrees, and no air-conditioning in those days, it would have been unbearable without swamp coolers. Essentially a fan blowing air over wet terrycloth, they were very effective in the dry climate. My Mom said that even when it was 115 degrees out, the inside of the house was about 85. Maybe I outta try it. I actually had a chance to visit Winkelman years ago. I was forced to attend a symposium in Phoenix, Ariz., and I had a day off, so instead of sitting in a motel by the air-conditioner watching daytime TV, I decided to check out my Mom's old stomping grounds. It was the #$%&hole she described it as. It was in a particularly desolate part of Southeast Arizona. There were still about 300 people living there for some reason, but the smelter and company housing had long since burned to the ground. There was just a pile of rubble and the 250-foot tall smoke stack that my Mom said polluted the entire area 24/7 — oh yeah, and some slag heaps that no doubt contained toxic dust that would blow around whenever the wind came up. I talked to a few of the locals who wondered what the hell I was doing there. I replied: "good question," and then vamoosed back to Phoenix. That disaster in the desert suddenly didn't seem so bad. Weather or Not by Ashland weather statistician Doyle Hirsch appears periodically. By Doyle Hirsch For the Tidings DailyTidings.com By Doyle Hirsch For the Tidings Posted Jul. 7, 2015 at 7:07 PM » Comment or view comments Reader Reaction » STAY INFORMED Email NewsLetter Sign Up Today Sign up for our newsletter and have the top headlines from your community delivered right to your inbox. Southern Oregon Directory Featured Businesses Loading... 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