Every so often I slip into my meteorologist’s mode, scanning the weather history of various towns in the Southeast in behalf of customers or just for my own idle curiosity. My latest excursion into the world of weather was to identify cool summer golf homes for a couple currently living full-time in Port St. Lucie, FL. Like many Floridians, they are looking for summertime relief from the relentless 90-degree-plus days in the Sunshine State.
To be a meaningful change, daytime highs and nighttime lows should average at least 6 to 10 degrees cooler up north. July is the base measure since it is the hottest month virtually everywhere in the continental U.S.
I was shocked to find that a distance of 670 miles from Port St. Lucie to Wilmington, NC, did nothing at all to change the July temperature profile. According to Weather.com, Wilmington’s July average temperatures are exactly the same as Port St. Lucie’s -– 90 high and 75 low. Looking at various spots along the Carolinas coasts did little to improve the outlook: Pawleys Island, SC, is even slightly warmer, 91 high and 75 low; Ocean Isle Beach, NC, just over the state line from North Myrtle Beach, is only marginally better during the day, at 89, but balmier at night, 71. Even in Kitty Hawk, where the Wright Brothers counted on the predictable ocean winds on the Outer Banks to help their invention soar, the daytime average high in July is 88 and the average low is 73. (Note: Humidity readings in many of these spots is lower than in Florida, perhaps making it feel somewhat cooler.)
It can be downright frigid on summer nights at 4,000 feet up at Mountain Air in Burnsville, NC. Not surprisingly, the community is a favorite among pilots looking for a place to relax.
