Weird weather shadows camp

Arkansas coach Bret Bielema watches warmups prior to practice Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2017, in Fayetteville.
Arkansas coach Bret Bielema watches warmups prior to practice Tuesday, Aug. 1, 2017, in Fayetteville.

FAYETTEVILLE -- Where, oh where can the dog days of summer be?

It's been a little hotter around Northwest Arkansas the past few days, but the first three weeks of camp for the Arkansas Razorbacks were pleasant compared with a typical August. And the weather forecast is calling for another cool down.

Hog days of summer

The Arkansas Razorbacks have enjoyed a training camp marked by much cooler and wetter weather than normal. A look at the daily high and low temperatures, the average temperature and the rainfall amounts recorded at Drake Field since Arkansas opened camp on July 27.

Date;High;Low;Avg.;Rain

July 27;88;72;80;0.00

July 28;87;69;78;0.40

July 29;86;63;75;0.00

July 30;84;58;71;0.00

July 31;87;57;72;0.00

Aug. 1;73;66;70;0.26

Aug. 2;84;66;75;0.01

Aug. 3;87;63;75;0.34

Aug. 4;81;62;72;0.00

Aug. 5;84;63;74;0.00

Aug. 6;78;64;71;1.11

Aug. 7;82;62;72;0.00

Aug. 8;83;65;74;0.00

Aug. 9;84/61;73;0.00

Aug. 10;87;65;76;0.01

Aug. 11;82;68;75;0.16

Aug. 12;82;66;74;0.01

Aug. 13;71;66;69;1.50

Aug. 14;77;68;73;0.40

Aug. 15;87;67;77;0.23

Aug. 16;83;66;75;0.35

Aug. 17;83;66;75;0.90

Aug.18;88;66;77;0.24

Aug. 19;92;68;80;0.00

Aug. 20;91;70;81;0.00

Aug. 21;88;68;78;0.00

Source: National Weather Service website, Tulsa office

Recording site: Drake Field

Fifth-year Coach Bret Bielema was asked recently whether he'd ever seen more mild temperatures during a training camp.

"Yeah, when I was at Wisconsin," Bielema said.

Arkansas tight ends coach Barry Lunney Jr. said he was talking to a high school coach about the atypical weather earlier in camp.

"None of us can remember a fall being this mild," Lunney said. "So it's been nice. To be honest with you, with how early camp started for us, I think that's been a real blessing for us for it not to be so overly physically taxing because of the length of camp."

The weather data don't lie.

Pete Snyder, a meteorologist in the Tulsa office of the National Weather Service, said the average temperature for August at Drake Field has been 74.4 degrees.

"If the month ended today, that would tie us for the 14th coolest August," said Snyder, citing data back to 1952. "It is one of the cooler ones. It does look like we're going to cool off [in the coming days], so it'll probably be among the coolest."

Snyder said the coolest August in Fayetteville was 1992, with an average temperature of 71.2 degrees.

The hottest temperature recorded at Drake Field since camp opened July 27 was 92 degrees on Saturday, a day the Razorbacks did not practice. The daily high temperature at the reporting station at Drake has reached above 90 only once -- 91 degrees on Sunday -- on a practice day for Arkansas. The high hit 85 or above on the first four practice days at the end of July, but on only six days since.

"Man, it's been great," senior safety Josh Liddell said last week. "I can't remember a time where it's been the middle of August, early August and it was 80 degrees and cloudy. It's been great.

"Guys have been taking advantage of it, coming out of practice and staying hydrated."

In addition to Monday's near-total eclipse of the sun, it also has been wet in Northwest Arkansas.

"There's above-normal rainfall," Snyder said. "We're at 5.52 inches of rain in Fayetteville for August. Normal this time of the year should be at 2.17 inches, so that's 3.35 inches above the normal. It's been wetter than normal and cooler than normal. It's almost as if we have a fall-like pattern set up."

The 5.52 inches of rain did not include Tuesday, which featured a morning shower over parts of Fayetteville.

Between the stretched-out practice schedule, the lack of two-a-days and the mild weather, it has been a memorable camp.

"Isn't it amazing?" University of Arkansas, Fayetteville linebackers coach Vernon Hargreaves said earlier in camp. "For me, in the last 30 years, I've never had a camp like this."

This camp is a drastic departure from Arkansas' preseason practice in 2011. That summer featured six record-high temperatures during the first eight days of the month, all 102 degrees or higher, including 110 degrees on Aug. 3.

The daily average temperature for the first 17 days this August ranged between 2 degrees and 9 degrees below average.

"We see this sometimes where we get a month that's just different," Snyder said. "It deviates from the average. That's normal that every so often we'll get an August like this for whatever reason. It's very complex. There are all sorts of reasons."

Sophomore linebacker De'Jon Harris said last year's training camp was "way hotter" than now. He prepared himself for camp by working out in June and July during the hottest part of the day.

"I worked out at 3 [p.m.] during the summer," Harris said. "I was conditioning myself to prepare for it."

Receivers coach Michael Smith said after an 87-degree day earlier in camp that he could tell the wideouts got a little sluggish late in practice.

"We know when September comes around it's going to be hot," Smith said. "Every home opener we've had since I've been here has been ridiculously hot."

Tight end Cheyenne O'Grady said that on a hot day Aug. 15, the Razorbacks "had a couple of guys fall out" of the Hog Pen, the club that includes players who miss two periods or less of practice during camp.

"I guess we weren't really used to it," O'Grady said. "It was just something kind of different. The humidity, maybe? I don't know, but it drained all of us."

The Arkansas coaches said strength and conditioning coach Ben Herbert and his staff did a good job training the players to stay in shape throughout the preseason.

"The way we practice, the intensity and speed at which we practice, just really gets them ready for the first of the year," Lunney said. "But it could be one of those 98-degree days in Little Rock when we go to play."

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Sports on 08/23/2017

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