Mother Nature cracked over the weekend, and Washingtonians enjoying a delightfully cool spring were thrust into August-like weather lethargy. While the summertime welcome has been rude — with high humidity and temperatures in the upper 90s — it’s hardly unheard of, according to local meteorologists.
“It’s not uncommon for us to be this warm at this time of year,” said Kevin Witt of the National Weather Service.
The average high temperature in the Washington area in late May and early June is about 80 degrees, but the earliest recorded 95-degree mark was on April 17, 2002, Witt said. The earliest 100-degree knockout came on June 5, 1925 — a good 25 years before air conditioning made most buildings bearable.
A “cold” front approaching from the West on Wednesday may bring thunderstorms in the afternoon, but “the warmth will linger,” Witt said.
Though pregnant women might argue otherwise, the heat and humidity seemed to hit tourists and outdoor laborers the hardest on Tuesday.
At Lafayette Square, just across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House, even the resident ducks couldn’t gussy up for the travelers and tour groups, opting instead to lounge in muddy lawn pools created by leaky sprinklers.
Nearby, Rich Lamb and Claire Suau-Marcus sauntered toward the White House, brows glistening.
Lamb, in from Los Angeles, and Suau-Marcus, in from London, commented that both their hometowns were quite a bit more tolerable at the moment than the District.
“We were hoping to walk to the Capitol today, but that might be a lot in the heat,” Suau-Marcus said. “We might save that for tomorrow.”
A group of Orange County students in town on a school trip took refuge under a tree, saying that compared to sunny California, D.C. is “a little hotter and a lot more humid.”
One student showcased underarm sweat marks “the size of Iraq” before a teacher — seemingly a bit testy from the heat — warned him not to talk to strangers.
Outside a downtown coffee shop, Chester Urbina and two colleagues sipped cold drinks with the truck door open, on a short break from their jobs hauling oversized trash.
“The AC in the truck is broken today,” Urbina said. “I called my boss and asked him to let us go home early.”
