The August 2026 Edition
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August ran about as warm as usual and came in close to normal on rain, and Five Mile Creek never reached the high water line.
This edition was put together on September 15, 2026, after the month was over, from the records as they stood. Its calls were worked out by the same rule as every other month, from what was on file before each month began.
August along the creek
The average of the highs and lows came to 81.7 degrees, 0.8 degrees warmer than normal for August.
Our station measured 3.78 inches of rain, against a normal of 4.35 at the Birmingham airport. The wettest day was August 1, with 1.25 inches.
At the Birmingham airport, whose record goes back to 1930, it was the tenth warmest August on the books.
Weather logIt never reached the high water line, 3.5 feet at Republic.
Its highest reading, 3.48 feet on August 9, was lower than the 3.79 feet the creek reaches in a typical August since 2008.
The high water line is the one the masthead uses. It is not a flood stage, because this gauge does not have one.
Creek log59 stories ran in August, not counting obituaries.
Six were about Graysville, one about Cardiff, and none about Brookside. The rest were about the county and the places around the three towns.
The story index starts on August 16.
Story index19 species were recorded along the lower creek for the first time on file, among them Ailanthus Webworm Moth, Hackberry Emperor, and Pole Borer.
Nature WatchHow the calls did
Set against the same month in 1991 to 2020 at the Birmingham airport, August finished in the warm third for temperature and the middle third for rain.
NOAA's outlook, issued July 31, gave a 40 percent chance of a warmer than normal month. That was right.
FIVEMILE called it warm, because after a warm July, August had come in warm in 12 of 23 years. That was right.
Since August 2014, NOAA's temperature outlook for these three towns has been right 64 times and missed 33 times, with no lean 46 times. FIVEMILE has been right both times it has made a call since January 2026. A call made by guessing would be right about one time in three.
September ahead
NOAA's Climate Prediction Center gives these three towns a 50 percent chance of a warmer than normal September, and no lean either way on rain.
FIVEMILE's call is a warmer than normal September. After a warm August, September has come in warm in 12 of 25 years at the airport.
FIVEMILE does not call rain. In the airport record a wet month is followed by a wet one no more often than chance would have it.
Normal highs at the Birmingham airport fall from 89 to 82 degrees over September, and normal rain for the month is 4.00 inches.
The days lose 59 minutes of daylight over September, from 12 hours and 51 minutes on the 1st to 11 hours and 52 minutes on the 30th.
The autumn equinox comes on September 22.
AlmanacDates in September
Calendar →Gardendale Farmers Market
Jefferson County tornado siren test
Graysville City Council meeting
Cardiff City Council meeting
Suicide Awareness Walk
Electronics & Paper Shredding Drop-Off
Brookside Town Council meeting
Graysville City Council meeting
Autumn Equinox
Harvest Moon
Where this comes from The month's weather is the FIVEMILE weather station. Normals, ranks, records and the thirds a month is scored in are the official National Weather Service record kept at the Birmingham airport since 1930, set against 1991 to 2020. The creek is the USGS gauge on Fivemile Creek near Republic. The outlook is the monthly outlook from NOAA's Climate Prediction Center, read at the middle of the three towns. The stories are the ones the news page ran, the sightings are iNaturalist's research grade records, and the dates are the calendar's. FIVEMILE's call is a rule written down in advance: it looks at how the month just gone finished and at what followed every earlier year that started the same way. Every sentence here was written ahead of time and filled in from those records, and no edition is changed after it runs.