NEW YORK, March 30 (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve should have more clarity by the end of the summer whether recent strength in U.S. inflation data is a lasting reality or merely a temporary blip due to winter-related irregularities in the surveys, a top Fed official said on Wednesday.

“If we see the monthly numbers continue to come in more strongly and they begin to pile up I think you’d have to take that seriously. If it’s a residual seasonalities story we ought to see it waning at some point,” said Chicago Fed President Charles Evans.

“You would think that going into the end of the summer you’d have a little more information about that,” he told reporters. (Reporting by Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)