Mike Akulow, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Topeka, is predicting temperatures for the Lawrence-Topeka area to be slightly below typical averages for July, August and early September. Normal in early July is upper 80s increasing to low 90s in early August, he said.

“That doesn’t mean we can’t have a 100-degree day,” Akulow said.

Rainfall, he said, should be about normal, which for this area is 3.8 inches in July and 3.8 inches in August.

For the past several days, northeast Kansas has been in a pattern that brought mild temperatures and periods of heavy rain. That’s because the wind flow has been from the cooler northwest. Traditionally the flow is from the hotter south and southwest this time of year, Akulow said.

The summer solstice actually came Sunday evening near sundown.

Sunday night about 15 people gathered outside Kacey Carlson’s rural Leavenworth County home to light a bonfire, feast and celebrate the solstice and the arrival of the first day of summer.

The group of Wiccans tossed stick figures into the fire and later had a feast.

“It’s a celebration of the longest day and the peak of the sun’s power,” said Carlson, a high priestess for a local witches’ coven that practices Wicca.

Carlson said the coven didn’t practice satanism. Through Wicca, they practice a reverence for nature.

Andrew Carttar, 10, pulls up his swim trunks to keep from losing them in the spray of a water at the outdoor Lawrence Aquatic Center. Carttar was at the pool Monday for the first full day of summer.

The bonfire celebration dates to the time of the Druids in England when the solstice was marked with fires burning through the night on hills, Carlson said.

She explained the stick-throwing ritual.

Weather Forecast Windows to the Universe: The Summer Solstice

“That becomes sort of a therapeutic activity that represents being done with a particular phase of my life, or I want to remove this obstacle,” said Carlson, who co-owns The Good Earth Mother Alchemy Shop, 803 Vt.