TheClimateChanger

SERCC's Climate Perspectives suggests Chicago would move into a tie for hottest season (through August 20) with the current forecast. Unfortunately, the last 7-10 days of the month looks cooler on the whole.

Barring some late day mischief, looks like an 89F high for today.

The airport ended up with 0.79", all coming in less than an hour. They had a nice cell, not much larger than the airport itself, pass right overhead. I only ended up with a few hundredths of an inch.

2005 looks like the hottest summer overall for New York State, per NCEI. June & July 2025 came in it third place at 69.3F. Right now, I have August around 68.5F for a gridded statewide mean, which would yield a meteorological summer mean of 69.0F for the state. 2005 was a scorcher! With as hot as this summer has been, it's hard to believe it was more than 1F warmer. That's huge for a statewide average.

Will be interesting to see where meteorological summer finishes up in the NOAA/NCEI statewide rankings. Ohio was in 4th place for June & July, with a mean of 74.5F. The hottest for that period since 1952, which was also 74.5F. Michigan was in a rather more pedestrian 13th place, with a mean of 68.6F (tied with 1931 & 1934). Through the first 13 days of August, I have the Ohio statewide mean at around 72.5F and Michigan at 70.9F. If those values hold, meteorological summer would come in at 73.8F for Ohio and 69.4F for Michigan. That would be the 4th hottest in both states (in Michigan tied with 1995; and in Ohio, tied with 1901, 1949, 2002 & 2010). For Ohio, that's 0.7F below the record hot summer of 1934. August's mean would need to come in ~2.1F higher than the current mean just to tie the record - the last 18 days would have to be absolutely blazing. So a record is very unlikely. For Michigan, however, the estimated current August temperature would yield a summertime mean just 0.2F below the existing record (1955 & 2005 tie), so August's mean would need to increase by ~0.6F to tie the record. Doable, but it would be a tall task as it has already been quite warm the first 13 days. And the last 18 days would need to be about 1F or so warmer to get the full month mean up another 0.6F. So unlikely to tie/break the existing record values, especially with cooler air returning to northern lower Michigan and the UP.

Looking at @frd's 6-10 day outlook, which shows most of the Mountaineer State 2 to 5F above recent climatological normals (with the exception of a small portion of the Eastern panhandle), I think the temperatures should be sufficiently high to push the West Virginia statewide mean high enough to at least tie, if not break, the record for hottest summer. That gets us to August 24 - the question then becomes whether that can hold for the final week. This is a record that was first set 125 years ago (albeit tied in 2010)! Stay tuned!

Update on summertime temperatures: Both Virginia and West Virginia saw their second hottest June-July period on record. Virginia had a gridded mean of 76.6F, second only to 2010's mean of 77.0F. At West Virginia, the two-month mean finished at 73.8F, second only to 1934. Incredibly since 1952, only one June-July came within 1F of that value (and only barely). The mean in 2010 was 72.9F, or 0.9F cooler than this year. August has started MUCH colder. My best estimate for the current mean is 71.5F in Virginia and 70.7F in West Virginia. Very rare for the two states to have such similar mean temperatures. West Virginia is usually decidedly colder on average. The Virginia value if it were to hold would match 1986 for 13th coldest August on record. West Virginia's implied mean is already in the warmer half of all Augusts. If these values were to hold, Virginia's summer mean would finish at 74.9F (13th hottest), while West Virginia's summer mean would finish at 72.8F (tied for 4th hottest). We can safely rule out a record hot summer for Virginia; however, a top 10 hottest summer is still very much possible. Currently, there is a 3-way tie for 10th place between 1952, 2002 & 2005. August would probably need to finish around 72.1F or higher for a top 10 summer. Now, the mean of 72.8F for West Virginia falls just 0.2F shy of the current record hot summer (1900 & 2010, both at 73.0F). To tie those years, we would need to see August finish around 71.3F. To break them, around 71.6F. To put that into perspective, 71.3F is the 1991-2020 mean, so West Virginia would only need to have a normal August (based on most recent climatology) to tie the record.

Looks awfully similar to their outlooks for 2022-2023 & 2023-2024. With that track record, I wouldn't put too much stock in it.

Saw NWS Portland reached 100F too, but that was the one in Oregon, not the office in Gray.

Made it up to 100F at Dixfield, Maine yesterday (reported as today's high due to morning observation time). Several other locations in the State reached 99F. While falling well shy of the monthly state record of 104F, that was the 1st 100F high temperature observed in the State of Maine in the month of August since August 15, 2001, when it reached 101F at Livermore Falls 1 E. I believe that was also a morning observation, as the prior day had a high of 100F at Fryeburg, Maine. In fact, since the record heat wave of 1975, only one other date besides yesterday & the date(s) in 2002... on August 9, 2001, Fryeburg reached 100F.

Really an incredible winter that ought to be remembered as fondly as 1976-1977, but they didn't measure snowfall in the same manner or with the same diligence and so it gets lost in the shuffle... but the snow depth records tell the real story. It's like comparing the dead ball era baseball records to the modern era. Like you'd think the 1910s weren't that snowy at Buffalo until you look and see there was a foot of snow on the ground for most of the winter! These days, they'll be like X location picked up 100" of lake effect in 4 days, and the peak snow depth will be like 20 inches. December-February snow depth at Buffalo - actually had 6 more days of 18"+ than 1976-1977! At Erie, an absolutely absurd 20 more days of 18"+ than any other winter, despite 4 missing days...

I doubt we'll see another winter of 1944-45 though! Here are some scenes from the Finger Lakes and Buffalo, respectively. And Toronto, Ontario, in the wake of the Great Snowstorm of 1944:

Saw it near Pittsburgh. I assume a rocket launch. It was drifting slowly north.

Burlington made it to 98F. Second latest date in the calendar year to reach 98F.

Very upside down month, based on the average highs for the first 11 days of August. Charlotte is nearly 7F colder than Burlington, Vermont, and 6F colder than Buffalo.

Morgantown did later go through its own heat island period for a time in the next decade, where it flipped the script and became a powerhouse of 90 degree days. In 1893, at the height of its ascent, it surpassed Pittsburgh by a whopping 35 days in that metric!

On the topic of 90 degree days, that 19th century Pittsburgh heat island must have been insane. Why so many more than Morgantown? Wow! According to this, from 1880-1882, Pittsburgh had 105 days at or above 90F, while Morgantown had either 8 or 4, with only a handful of missing days?

Some isolated thunderstorms are possible today! Barring a surprise, 90 looks likely today, and low 90s look increasingly likely for both days this weekend. Friday and Monday, it looks unlikely, but close enough that a small change in the forecast could allow us to reach 90F on one of those days. With the current forecast, we could be up to 18 days of 90+ by Sunday. Can we reach 20? Believe it or not, the last time there were two consecutive years with 20 or more days of 90+ in Pittsburgh was 1933 & 1934 (when observations were downtown). There were 21 days in both 1933 & 1934, so it barely accomplished that feat. 1987 & 1988 was very close. Of course, 1988 had tons of 90F heat, with 1987 finishing with 19 days.

Some of the more notable high temperatures reported by ACIS for the Pine Tree State, include: 99 at the Houlton Band of Maliseet Indians Tribal Soil and Climate Analysis Network station, 98 at Augusta State Airport and Dixfield, 97 at Fryeburg and Millinocket, and 96 at Bangor. Among co-coops reporting in the morning (attributed to the following day - i.e., today), Topsfield 2 reached 98 and Van Buren 2 topped out at 95. The 99F reading at the HBMI TSCAN site matches the highest temperature reported by ACIS for the month of August in the State of Maine since 2002. The last time it reached 99F (as per ACIS data) in the state of Maine during the month of August was on August 12, 2016 at Portland Jetport Airport. The last time it reached 100F+ was August 15, 2002, when it topped out at 101F at Livermore Falls 1 E. Fryeburg topped out at 100F on the day prior (August 14, 2002). Above is a partial listing of all highs >92F for August 11, with all of the late reporting data below.

Some very impressive highs across the "Empire State" including 96 at Dansville, 95 at Massena, 95 at Ogdensburg, 94 at Fort Drum, 93 at Fulton and Syracuse. The Miramichi, NB reading was 37.6C BTW, or 99.68F (basically 100F if you use typical American temperature rounding)!

The last time this feat was met was July 6-8, 2010!