Last Updated on August 9, 2016 2:36 pm
July was dry, so dry in fact it nearly set a new record.
With only 2.73 inches of rain officially recorded for Boone, July 2016 became the 4th driest July since 1980. Only the years 1993, 1987 and 1983 were drier.
HEAT was another main weather story for the month. Officially, Boone's average temperature was the 6th warmest since 1980, while the max temp tied for the 2nd warmest.
At the Watauga Medical Center reporting station, which is not used for official historical records, 24 days out of the month reached or surpassed 80 degrees which ties July 2006 for the same mark.
For the month from the Watauga Medical Center reporting station:
Highest temperature: 88.34 Tuesday July 26
Lowest temperature: 56.3 Sunday July 17
Peak Wind Gusts: 63 mph at 6:55pm Friday July 8
But the main weather story occurred during early July, as storms rolled through knocking out power to a large section of the county for days. It took Blue Ridge Electric, and assisting crews, roughly 70 hours to restore all power after storms moved through starting on Friday night July 8. At the height of the outage, 18,000 members were affected, most of which were in Watauga County. Numerous trees came down blocking roads, taking out power lines, and some falling on homes and cars.
It was, by some accounts, the worst storm to hit the area in at least seven years.
