Kevin Myatt is The Roanoke Times' weather columnist.

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If you look at the daily normal temperatures for Roanoke, the ball has just barely crested the hill and is about to start its slow roll toward winter.

Roanoke reaches its summer heating peak, based on the 1971-2000 averages used to denote norms by the National Climatic Data Center, on July 22, 23 and 24, when the normal high is 88 and the normal low is 66.

The average high for each day from July 13 to August 5 is 88, but the average low for each of those days is 65, except for July 22 to 24, when it is 66.

So, technically, those three days are normally the warmest of the year.

After Aug. 6, the normal high temperature starts to decline; the normal low follows suit two days later.

By the end of August, a normal day for Roanoke features a high of 83 and a low of 61.

But how often are temperatures normal?

Two of the three dates that share Roanoke's all-time record high of 105 are yet to come.

That mark was set on July 10, 1936; Aug. 5, 1930, and Aug. 21, 1983.

And as recently as 1986, Roanoke dipped into the low 40s before the end of August.

Last August was a sizzler, the hottest monthly average temperature in 60 years of record-keeping at Roanoke's airport.

In upcoming days, we'll try to peer into the August just ahead.