The News Tribune

Summer? You bet.

Here’s proof: ice cream, lemonade, raspberries.

And then there’s those bank signs that electronically display the temperature. They have finally dusted off their 8s, as in 80, 82 and 84 degrees in some parts of the South Sound.

While temperatures are slated to moderate by midweek, the weekend remained hot (for around here) and without a threat of storms.

So it was a weekend for car washes, as hawkers competed on street corners with people waving signs proclaiming cheap pizza and furniture sales.

At Chambers Creek, skimboarders shared the water with gaggles of resident Canada geese. Down at Sunnyside Beach, near Steilacoom, volleyballs bounced and swimmers braved a cold Puget Sound. Picnickers sought shade in Tacoma’s Wright Park.

In South Tacoma, relatives Devyn, 12, and Alyssa, 13, sold lemonade at the corner of South 56th and Warner streets.

How was business?

“OK so far,” said Alyssa.

“We’ve only been here a half-hour,” said Devyn.

“We’re raising money for a Halloween party,” said Alyssa.

“It’s a hot day,” said Devyn.

This is not their first outing in 2012.

“Before, it was warm but it was cloudy,” said Alyssa. “We got $6.”

A few blocks away, Danielle Lambert reached into the back of her ice cream truck to serve a trio of customers.

“I’m doing great, thank you,” she said.

She liked the weather, as did her lemonade competitors.

“It’s going to stay this way for the rest of the week,” Lambert predicted. “When it’s hot, we make a lot of money.”

Her bestsellers this weekend were frozen watermelon and grape ice-pops. And yes, she said, that theme music from “The Sting” does drive her nuts.

The highs in the mid-80s this weekend were not record-breakers. Since 1982, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, that distinction in July belongs to 2004, at 94 degrees.

The average high temperature for the month is 77 degrees, according to The Weather Channel, with the average low at 56.

July, incidentally, is the driest month hereabouts, with an average of 0.68 inches of precipitation.

The average high for this day, July 9, is 76 degrees, with the record high inking 92 degrees in 1985.

And if the temperatures remain inflated, Terry Carkner of Terry’s Berries along River Road between Tacoma and Puyallup will not be as happy as those skimboarders or those girls earning their way toward a merry Halloween.

Carkner’s strawberries have already gone south, thanks to rain early in the season, and the heat so far has tempted her spinach to go to seed.

But the raspberries have begun, and, with the heat, “the tomatoes are happy,” she said Saturday.

The Old Farmer’s Almanac, by the way, calls for 79 degrees today and 80 on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Look for showers, then clearing skies and warm days between Thursday and a week from Tuesday, then it will be hot again by the 27th.

And as far as next winter goes, there is no word yet from woolly caterpillars.