There is a simple way to enjoy the best of the beach weather. It requires moving to the beach. If you are always here, then finding the best days to be on the beach comes pretty easy. When we get a run of nasty weather, we just stay off the beach until the weather improves. Fortunately for tourists, it is rare that we get a full day of rain. This summer it has been rare to get any rain. Whenever I get stuck thinking about how unlucky we are when the weather turns bad, I try to remember that any day on the beach is generally better than the best day in the city.
Luckily for those of us who live here on the coast, the week after the fourth of July has been a relatively wet one. It has really put a dent in our dry conditions. Certainly it has not been the best week to visit the coast, but with the weather, you have to take what you get.
We do get rainy weather along the coast, but if you check the statistics, we also get more than our share of sunshine. Unfortunately that does not do you much good if you came for a visit and only have one day to spend on the beach, and the rain shows up.
June and July 2008 have been exceptionally dry and rain free up until this week after the fourth of July. I have a hard time remembering when we have seen more rainy hours than we have experienced on July 11. Our plants and yards really did need the rain.
Our typical summer weather is blue skies in the morning with some clouds and potential thunderstorms building in the afternoon.
April is the month in which we generally experience the most sunshine. We average 70% sunshine during April. By July we have dropped to just about 62% sunshine. We reach our lowest point of sunshine in December when we get down to 56% sunshine.
July, it turns out is the peak of our days with some precipitation at 40%. July is also our warmest with the average high temperature of 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Only August is slightly more humid than July.
During July and August, I like to think about our best months are September through June. Our average high temperature only dips slightly below sixty degrees for January and February. Most of the rest of the time we are in a very temperate range which allows for outdoor activity most of the year. The water can still be very pleasant in October and sometimes even into early November.
So if you come to the beach during July and August, just remember you have missed all the really good weather during the other ten months of the year.
One of the greatest things about living at the beach is that during the cold months of the years we are almost always warmer than places to the west of us, and during the summer we are almost always cooler than interior North Carolina except the mountains.
Even when we are warmer, we can usually just jump in the water except on those rare days when the rains just will not leave and the thunder never seems far away.
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