Lawrence resident Daniel Klinger is a former meteorological technician with the National Weather Service who now gathers local weather data as a hobby. Look for monthly reports from Daniel, or anytime after the Lawrence area has experienced a major weather event.

Summary: Summer may come to an end in September, but it didn’t always look that way on the thermometer. Summer was on the warm side of average in Lawrence with rainfall near to slightly below normal.

Temperature: Based on the weather station at the Lawrence Municipal Airport, the average high temperature was 83.6 degrees in September. That’s 2.3 degrees above normal. The average low was 58.3 degrees, which is 3.4 degrees below normal. And here’s a weather fact to amaze your friends: The average high in September actually was one-tenth of a degree higher than the average Lawrence high in August. That goes to show how abnormally cool August was.

Local Weather Watcher Daniel Klinger

Hottest day: The month topped out at 92 degrees on Sept. 22. Interestingly, the highest temperature in August also was 92 degrees. Indeed there was a time that September probably felt more like August. From Sept. 19 to Sept. 25, the average high was 90 degrees and the average low was 69. That’s an exceptional 14 degrees above normal.

Coolest day: It did feel like fall at times. The month bottomed out at 43 degrees on Sept. 6. That was the coolest temperature in Lawrence since May 13.

Rainfall: 3.47 inches of rain fell at the weather station at the airport. That’s down from an average of 4.16 inches for September. A volunteer network of weather watchers that has seven professional rain gauges across the city showed precipitation was a bit hit-or-miss. Northwest Lawrence — near Peterson and Folks — had only 2.8 inches, while the southwest part of town — near 27th and Crossgate — had 4.33 inches for the month.

Wettest day: A storm that stretched from Sept. 16 to Sept. 17 dumped about 2.6 inches of rain on Lawrence. The only other precipitation of note occurred on Sept. 18, 25 and 26. Indeed there was a stretch in which conditions were pretty dry. Lawrence went 19 days — beginning on Aug. 28 — with no rainfall.

Year to date: Lawrence already has received 39.06 inches of rain for the year. That is about 7 inches above normal. In fact, for an entire year, Lawrence normally receives 38.5 inches, so 2017 is already guaranteed to go down as an above-average year.

We’ll see what fall brings. A very strong jet stream pushing into the western U.S. looks to bring some interesting weather changes for our area in the first half of October.