How hot was it? June poised to set a record

Dazzling fireworks displays are primed to explode in the skies over the region this weekend, but given what nature has done recently in a historically hot June, they may be anticlimactic.

Even as some homes remained without power for a fourth consecutive day Monday, yet another round of strong storms rippled through parts of the region, this time hitting South Jersey with particular ferocity.

The storms were less severe than Thursday's, and they did have one benign impact, breaking yet another heat wave on a day when Philadelphia's official temperature hit 96, just one degree shy of the all-time record.

Tuesday night and for the rest of the workweek, the air mass should be refreshingly Green Mountain-esque.

But another heat wave may be on the horizon for the holiday weekend, and this month has a shot at becoming the warmest June on record in Philadelphia.

"What happened to all that snow we had?" asked Gary Szatkowski, the meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service office in Mount Holly.

It is long gone. Actually, even rain has been surprisingly scarce. Despite three rounds of strong storms in five days, the region continues to run significant precipitation deficits.

As one indication of the dryness, by Monday afternoon, lightning-sparked brush fires had charred about 900 acres of Pine Barrens in Ocean County.

During the last 60 days through Sunday, rain was as much as 35 percent below normal, with the biggest deficits in Chester County.

On Monday, lack of rain was about the last thing on Catherine Poole's mind. During the weekend, Poole, who lives in Glenmoore, in Wallace Township, Chester County, had an extraordinary experience.

Thursday's storm erased so much tree cover from her 22-acre property that she awoke in the middle of the night with the full moon in her eyes.

"I've never had that happen before," said Poole. "It was blinding."

On Monday - her fourth day without power - Peco Energy Co. trucks kept her from getting out of her driveway.

"I'm ready to go get a hotel room with a pool," said Dorothy Willmott, who lost seven trees on her one-acre property on Creek Road in Glenmoore. She and her husband, Steve, have been making gratuitous trips to the store to keep cool.

Poole is certain that she and the Willmonts were victims of a tornado. Szatkowski said he is sympathetic to the perception.

"For many folks, this is the worst damage they've ever seen," he said.

But the National Weather Service has no evidence, he added, and the destruction evidently was all due to straight-line winds.

Peco had 22 crews working out in the Wallace Township area Monday and hoped to have power restored to the estimated 260 powerless customers by Tuesday, said spokesman Fred Maher.

In all, 350,000 lost power in the Thursday storms, 215,000 of those in the Peco service area, placing it No. 11 on the all-time Peco list. The 75 m.p.h. wind gust measured at Philadelphia International Airport was the third-highest ever, the National Weather Service said.

Storms that fired up on Saturday knocked out power to 15,000 in Chester County, the utility said.

Fortunately, the storms Monday weren't nearly as devastating. Maher said that only scattered outages were reported, as was the case in South Jersey, according to Public Service Gas & Electric. Some large limbs were felled in Cape May County, and a 40 m.p.h. gust was measured in Hammonton, Atlantic County, the Weather Service said.

The impressive feature Monday was the heat, which has become the dominant feature of June.

Through Monday, the average temperature for the month was 78.2. In records dating to 1874, the warmest Junes ever occurred in 1994 and 1925, when the average was 78.0.

Based on the forecast the next two days, it will be a close call, but June 2010 certainly will finish in the top three.

Colleen DeShayers, who was at the Crystal Lake Swimming Pool in Haddon Township with her 6-year-old daughter, is among those who has had enough.

"I hate it," she said. "I wish it was snowing."

Inquirer staff writer Elisa Lala contributed to this article, which also contains information from the Associated Press.