Friday’s warmth was above average, yet it was well below 90 and seemed consistent with comfort. The high temperature in the capital reached an apparently acceptable 87 degrees. The average high for the District on June 7 is 83.
Of course wisdom in the ways of Washington weather advises that temperature alone does not predict comfort.
Humidity can create unpleasantness even on a day in the 80s. But on Friday humidity seemed benign and unobjectionable.
Some figures may be cited in support of the evidence of the senses. For example, there is the heat index. It combines both temperature and humidity, to help gauge physical discomfort.
On an unpleasant summer day, the heat index often rises well above the actual temperature.
Consider, then, conditions in the District just before 4 p.m. on Friday. At that time, when the mercury was at its peak of 87 degrees, the heat index suggested that it felt like only 85. People felt not hotter, but cooler.
It seemed possible. A breeze was blowing from the northwest; the humidity was at a level that by experience alone seemed low: 30 percent.
The figures seemed all to align in support of describing Friday as a memorably pleasant day. It seemed a day of the sort that is hoped and wished for in June, a month with a reputation for providing many pleasant days.
Assessing Friday’s pleasantness quotient also relied on the look of the day, on its physical appearance. That visual evidence embraced vast expanses of blue sky, coexisting peacefully with fleets of white-topped clouds.
The cloud tops seemed almost incandescent with the brilliance of Friday’s almost omnipresent sunshine; despite its summertime strength, the sunshine appeared benign and benevolent and seemed not to scorch or sear, but to illuminate and to brighten.