TheClimateChanger

Just south of the Pittsburgh CWA, Clarksburg, West Virginia (KCKB) has reached at least 98F. That is the hottest reading there since August 21, 1983. It reached 97F in 1988, 1995 & 2012.

Clarksburg, West Virginia up to 98F on the most recent hourly observation. That is the hottest reading there since 1983! It reached 97F in 1988, 1995 & 2012.

It could always be a LOT worse.

96, maybe 97 at AGC.

Same. I've had barely more than a tenth of an inch so far in July, and only about 2-1/2" since June 1.

0.45” of rain earlier this morning at PIT, 0.31” of which fell in 5 minutes. Nothing IMBY so far.

Heat hanging around tough today. Still 91 at 7 pm.

I guess we have to pretend a top 15-20 warmest start to the season is "so cool" because it doesn't actually get "cool" anymore. Meanwhile large portions of the east and west coasts are having their hottest summers on record, certainly top 5. Should be one of the hottest summers on record in recorded U.S. history. I mean the numbers above are with a mean trough over the upper Midwest. Just imagine the numbers 2024 could produce with a mega ridge over these same areas.

Except it hasn't been cool, it's been one of the hottest starts to summer in the lifetime of most of the posters here. The "refreshing" crowd is mostly trolling or revisionist history. This is in advance of a significant heat wave that looks to last through Tuesday... Cleveland - ninth warmest to date, less than a degree from second place. Since 1952, only 2005 & 2012 have been warmer. Chicago - 11th hottest start to summer on record. Since 1971, only 2012 & 2020 have been hotter. Literally one of the hottest summers in the lifetime of that troll @A-L-E-Kbut we're supposed to pretend it's nice and refreshing. Midway (KMDW) even hotter at 75.6F. Some other climate sites with long PORs. Many of these sites have multiple recent years higher, so prior to 2010, a lot of these rankings would have been several spots higher. Detroit: 20th warmest Akron/Canton: 13th warmest Mansfield, Ohio: 13th warmest Toledo: 19th warmest Lansing, Michigan: 24th warmest [records date to 1863] Saginaw, Michigan: 14th warmest Columbus, Ohio: 16th warmest [since 1949, only 1991, 1999, 2012 & 2020 hotter] Milwaukee: 14th warmest Rockford, IL: 13th warmest The Toronto crowd keeps saying it's not been too bad, but if we look at the data from the eastern Lakes region, we can see it's one of the hottest summers ever observed - certainly in recent memory. Buffalo, New York Erie, Pennsylvania Wheeling, West Virginia Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

In any event, today was the 10th day of 90+ for the summer. Looks like the next 4 days will do better than 90F, which would put us at 14 90+ on July 16. For the record, the 19th century summer data is absurd. Some of these years, the official summer mean temperature was warmer than D.C. Also, 1875-1900 averaged a ridiculous 29 days of 90+ in the official record. But 1901-1930 had an average of 9 days at the downtown site [which is even weirder when you consider most sites with PORs that long show that to be a warmer period, with hot summers in 1901, 1911, 1919, 1921, 1930]. The 1901-1930 average is actually one fewer than the current 1991-2020 mean.

Drought feedback? 12th driest start to summer on record, and 7th driest start to July. Meteorological Summer to date July to date

Today was both my warmest and coolest readings of the past 7 days.

Yes, I have the same thing in Pennsylvania. I don't know what it is. First time I have seen it. I thought it was some sort of insect nest.

*Correction: 1F below the observation from June 29, 2012, at 5 am, and 1F below the 8am observation today.

July 17, 1988 is also a candidate. It was 82F at 5 am and 8 am, 1F cooler than the observations from June 29, 2012 for those hours. I don’t have the hourly observations for 6, 7 or 9.

Most likely, the actual highest temperature for those hours occurred in 2012, or perhaps this morning.

The 83F reading from 7 am on September 9, 1989 also appears to be erroneous. It was 69F at 5 & 8 on that date. And likewise the 83F from 6 am on June 23, 1989 also appears to be erroneous. Readings from 5 & 8 am were 67 and 66, respectively.

Yeah, it’s an error. I pulled up the climate data from July 1989 for KPIT and it has daily observations for each three hours starting at 1 am Local Standard Time (i.e. 2 am EDT) and it was 74F at 8 am, 89F at 11 am, and 93F at 1 pm. While the 9 am observation wasn’t listed, obviously wasn’t 93F. Looks like there was some weird time offset in the way the data got uploaded to the IEM database.

Looks like that urban heat island effect is creeping into East Nantmeal Township with the low temperature readings being significantly elevated in comparison to the high temperatures - which is especially surprising given the lack of precipitation [which would ordinarily lead to heightened diurnal ranges]. Have they been converting a lot of nearby woods and farmland to subdivisions? Maybe you need to add a UHI correction to your analysis.

I'm not satisfied with the current ranking system. Is this really as hot as it can get in Reading, Pennsylvania in the current climate? I don't think so. We should be comparing summers to 19th & 20th century summers observed in locations hundreds of miles south. So, yes, indeed, the current mean temperature of 77.1F for the summer to date is the highest on record for Reading, Pennsylvania. However, it's only ninth warmest on record for Richmond, Virginia, for the period ending in 2007 [111 years]. I excluded recent years since RIC has been putting up video game numbers. There were only 4 warmer starts to summer in Richmond prior through 1980. It's only 22nd warmest on record for Knoxville, Tennessee, for the period ending in 2001 [131 years]. Again, I excluded recent years due to temperatures being played on easy mode in Madden type numbers. It's only 26th warmest on record for Raleigh, for the period ending in 2001 [115 years]. It's only equal to or warmer than two years on record in Tallahassee, with 3 more within 1/2 of a degree. And it's second coldest on record for Orlando, nearly a degree warmer than the bone-chilling Orlandonian summer of 1930.

Like a miniature Ike.