Think it’s hot now? Remember 2016

Now this is what a Southern summer should feel like.

Not like last year, deadly dry and scorching for weeks, then months. Not a season of crops and landscapes parched for moisture, of wildfires devouring forests and darkening the skies with smoke and ash.

No, this has been a softer summer altogether – hot, humid, but not unbearably so for most.

Temperatures in the high 80s and low 90s this week seem moderate compared to the 95 degrees recorded in Chattanooga on July 13, 2016 – only partway through one of the hottest June-August periods in 138 years. Where rainfall was 9 inches below normal this time last year, it’s about 8 inches above now, a 17-inch differential.

The wet spring that continued into June and even July has left plenty of moisture in the ground, which is helping keep temperatures down, WRCB-Channel 3 Chief Meteorologist Paul Barys said. Chattanooga has measured 3.38 inches of rain so far this month, compared to normal rainfall of 1.74 inches for the entire month.