May Gray, June Gloom, July ... Oh, Why?

​Perhaps you noticed over the July 4 holiday that the "May Gray" that gave way to "June Gloom" still had not disappeared. Maybe that wetness in the driveway this morning--six days into sizzling season--had you freaked out, too.

Fear not, Dallas Raines: the National Weather Service (NWS) confirms Orange County skies are indeed wack right now.

Kevin Collins/Wikipedia Commons

Actual June Gloom grips SoCal--in June and not July, 2008.

​Yes, as the East Coast swelters in blistering heat and winter-like high surf continues to pound the Orange Coast (at least through this afternoon), unseasonably cool temperatures have reigned over SoCal.

June Gloom, the NWS reports, has just refused to go away as usual.

The normal seasonal pattern is for night and morning clouds to roll in from the ocean and move off in the afternoon, but so far this month a lingering low-pressure system has allowed the marine layer to deepen and created breezes that have pushed overcast skies inland.

The high-pressure system that has kept the East Coast sweltering may also be playing a role because the clouds can't move farther east, says the NWS.

However, the low pressure is expected to weaken and warm us soon. They swear.

"Toward the end of the week," NWS spokeswoman Tina Stall says here, you could probably break out the shorts."

Great. But what about the tan (or lack thereof)?