By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
CARIBOU — There’s a central Aroostook saying used to describe this part of the year that typically goes something along the lines of “the Aroostook River is so low you can walk across it without getting your feet wet!”
Aroostook Republican photo/Natalie Bazinet
An Aroostook County proverb states that you can walk across the river without getting wet at this time of year, which is hyperbole at least under the Caribou bridge to Fort Fairfield.
The river is low yet again, as standard for the end of an Aroostook summer, but August’s scant rainfall — 2.5 inches below normal — has contributed to lower river levels than normal. The Aroostook River was showing September’s water levels in late August, a statistic that has direct correlation to the decreased amount of precipitation.
Stormy days may seem to have been few and far between, but the precipitation level in Caribou is running just around normal for the year — only 0.35 inches below average, to be specific.
Water levels are at below normal to the north and south of the country’s northern most city. As of Friday afternoon, Fort Kent was 2.73 inches below typical levels and Houlton was 4.86 inches below normal.
While weather-related water cooler chatter has been focused on the dry summer, high temperatures have also been a topic of discussion.
According to Mike Cantin, warning coordination meteorologist for the National Weather Service Office in Caribou, temperatures in June were just about average, while July’s high temps were 4 degrees above normal and August’s were 3 degrees above normal.
Last summer’s relatively dismal weather — cool, wet, and cloudy — exacerbates this season’s seemingly dry and unquestionably warm weather.
This week may offer the last chances of the season to sport a bathing suit without coming down with a case of blue lips and goose bumps as today’s temperature is predicted to reach as high as 91 degrees and the heat will continue through Saturday. This could be the end of the seasonal highs in Aroostook County as the heat is ultimately fleeting — September is usually the high-temperatures turning point.
“It’s still technically summer until late September, but temperatures generally start dropping right around this time,” Cantin said. “The average temperature of August is in the 70s, while the average temperature in September is in the 60s.”
