TheClimateChanger

Couple of nice looking storm cells out there tonight. One near Rose City, Michigan, south of Huron National Forest, and one northwest of London, Ontario.

Like I said, that's immaterial. This is a statewide average. This month was hotter even with the raw and unadjusted data. The mean of 105 stations was 78.94F, versus a mean of 78.83F in 1934. And that was with a lot fewer stations (50) which were more biased towards warmer, low-elevation and city sites. The 1934 data is also biased up a bit due to the observation time being 5 or 6 pm in the afternoon for cooperative observers, versus 7 am today. Even ignoring that, it was still hotter last month. 1901 was actually closer, with an unweighted mean of 78.86F, but that was the average of just 42 stations heavily biased towards the Coastal Plain. The gridded values from NCEI look very reasonable, with all of those years among the hottest and 2012, 2020 & 2025 being basically tied. But you are correct to say it "squeaked by" as it was indeed a 3-way tie, not a new outright record, and there are several other years within a degree or so. Pretty typical at a state level... it's rare to beat prior records by more than a few tenths of a degree particularly in the summer. An individual site sometimes beats an old record by 1+F but very rarely in the state averages, and never in the summer when variability is at a relative minimum.

Looking at xMacis, the unweighted average mean temperature was 78.94F (average of 101 stations). In 2012, the unweighted average mean was 78.98F (average of 127 stations) and, in 2020, it was 79.00F (average of 109 stations). Looks like the gridded values for all three were identical. July 1934 was the hottest in Virginia during the 1930s. The unweighted average for that month was 78.83F, but adjustments for time of observation bias and equipment changes (MMTS a little cooler than CRS/LiG) bring it down somewhat. Even so, this year beats it straight up even using raw, unadjusted data. Also, you aren't factoring in that a lot of those sites have different months ahead of this one. It is certainly possible for a month to be record warm as a statewide average if it's near record warm across the state and the years ahead differ among the sites. This is looking at the statewide average.

Officially, a three-way tie between this past month, 2012 & 2020.

Might see some of those wildfires and floods that have been so prevalent across the globe back-to-back!

Something to keep an eye out. Certainly getting dry out there again like last summer. European ensemble mean says next 2 weeks could average 6-8F above normal locally.

9th warmest July on record for the Ohio Valley region, driven largely by West Virginia, which saw its hottest month on record. The State of Ohio recorded its 11th hottest July on record. Overnight low temperatures were especially impressive, as Ohio was one of 12 states to set a new record high for minimum temperatures in the month of July.

Something to ponder that may go against the general narrative. Not only are the PRISM estimates routinely coming in higher, but nClimDiv continues to demonstrate a cooling bias relative to USCRN and it's really becoming rather significant in recent months. The July anomaly was +.21F higher for USCRN, which makes a big difference in the rankings when each hundredth of a degree matters.

Pretty close! Officially checked in at 71.9F, matching 1901 & 1949 for 4th place overall.

Yes, you are right. Looks like the NWS must have a coop site nearby too. Looks a little warmer throughout the record than the observatory numbers, maybe lower in elevation?

Blue Hill Co-op saw its 4th hottest July on record with a mean temperature of 75.4F. Overall, it was the 9th hottest July for the state of Massachusetts with a gridded mean of 73.7F.

Also, nailed my projection for Connecticut. Was indeed the 3rd hottest on record with a statewide mean of 75.2F. Incredible stuff. Only 2013 & 2020 were hotter!

Nailed it! Very weird pattern with urban/ASOS sites tending to run below the statewide rankings in a sharp departure from recent years/decades where they've tended to run higher. They make up a sizable amount of the nClimDiv stations too, so the warmth was even more impressive at the co-op sites to bring the average up to 9th place.

Wow! It was indeed the hottest July on record for both Virginia and West Virginia! Maryland finished with its 2nd hottest July on record! Rather pedestrian (for this era) 19th place overall for the CONUS.

It was indeed the 4th hottest July on record for the Commonwealth! My estimate was pretty much spot-on.

Sorry, yes, 23, not 24.

Nice, is the source region Sonoran? All-time August record high of 118F today at PHX!

O'Hare tacked on its 24th 90+ day of the season! Projecting forward, the next three days are all forecast to exceed 90F. If that holds true, the count will reach 27 by Sunday. Very respectable tally, exceeded only once since 1988 (in the VERY hot summer of 2012), and tied for 11th overall. Looking specifically at O'Hare (records since 1959), that would be 5th highest. Definitely some good company in there with 2012, 1988 and 1983.

A couple of thoughts for today:

You'd think we'd be lighting up those PDSI maps with numbers like this: BDR down 5.55" for the summer to date. BUF has had only 0.77" since June 30! Plus, it's a top 5-10 hottest summer in most places.

While I think this is mostly the result of general climate warming, I think the sudden explosion of heat was aided by the significant reduction in sulfur emissions. Similar to some of the discussion surrounding the impact of recent shipping regulations of sulfur emissions, and its role in ocean warming. The funny thing is you ask certain people on here and they would insist the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s were scorching hot, even though nationally recent summers easily blow them out of the water.

You can really see the impacts of the enhanced sulfur regulations, coupled with continued warming trends. In the last 15 years, 6 years were hotter than any summer in the preceding 25 years. Only one (2014) was cooler than the median summer for that 25-year timeframe. In fact, every year since 2010, except for 2014, was hotter than at least 17 of 25 summers in the 1985-2009 period. 2025 will almost certainly finish hotter than any summer in 1985-2009, so that would be 7 of 16 years where that was the case. 2 other years (2016 & 2018) were hotter than every summer in the 1985-2009 period, except for 2006. CONUS Summer rankings of each year since 2010, versus the 25-year period 1985-2009 2010: 4th hottest of 25 (behind 1988, 2002, and 2006) 2011: Hotter than any summer for 1985-2009 period 2012: Hotter than any summer for 1985-2009 period 2013: 9th hottest of 25 (behind 1988, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2003, 2001, 2005 and 1998) 2014: 8th coldest of 25 (behind 1992, 2004, 1993, 2009, 1985, 1997 and 1989) 2015: 5th hottest of 25 (behind 1988, 2002, 2006 and 2007) 2016: 2nd hottest of 25 (behind 2006) 2017: 6th hottest of 25 (behind 1988, 2002, 2006, 2007, and 2003) 2018: 2nd hottest of 25 (behind 2006) 2019: 9th hottest of 25 (behind 1988, 2002, 2006, 2007, 2003, 2001, 2005 and 1998) 2020: Hotter than any summer for 1985-2009 period 2021: Hotter than any summer for 1985-2009 period 2022: Hotter than any summer for 1985-2009 period 2023: 5th hottest of 25 (behind 1988, 2002, 2006 and 2007) 2024: Hotter than any summer for 1985-2009 period