July Discobs 2025

[TheClimateChanger]

On 7/30/2025 at 11:01 PM, TheClimateChanger said:

Should finish rather close to the hottest July and any month on record for Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland. Looking at the current statewide numbers, I'm thinking 3rd place, perhaps even 2nd in Maryland. Maybe somewhat surprising looking only at the urban numbers, but a lot of rural and high elevation locations have cooked this month.

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.

[wxdude64]

3 hours ago, TheClimateChanger said:

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.

IF it is a record, it has just squeaked over previous mark. Looking across the state these are the numbers going back ONLY to 1980, mainly because that is what my numbers go back to.

Lynchburg tied 4th highest, Roanoke 7th highest, Danville 6th highest, Blacksburg 1st, Dulles tied 4th, Reagan National 8th, Charlottsville 8th highest, Staunton 1st, Dale Enterprise tied 6th, Front Royal 2nd, Norfolk 11th, Richmond tied 8th highest, Williamsburg tied 5th, Emporia 4th, Wallops Island tied 8th. Now to the far western/southwestern part of the state, and these numbers are high. Wise 1st, Pennington Gap 1st, Pulaski 3rd, Richlands tied 1st, Wytheville 5th, Pearisburg 2nd, Abington 4th, Covington 3rd, Hot Springs 1st, Gathright Dam tied 3rd and my own in 4th. Yes, that is a cross section and not ALL locations, but are there enough 1's and 2's to overcome the 8's, 7's, 6's and 11's? And was it warmer back in the 30's? Just pondering.

 

[TheClimateChanger]

2 minutes ago, wxdude64 said:

IF it is a record, it has just squeaked over previous mark. Looking across the state these are the numbers going back ONLY to 1980, mainly because that is what my numbers go back to.

Lynchburg tied 4th highest, Roanoke 7th highest, Danville 6th highest, Blacksburg 1st, Dulles tied 4th, Reagan National 8th, Charlottsville 8th highest, Staunton 1st, Dale Enterprise tied 6th, Front Royal 2nd, Norfolk 11th, Richmond tied 8th highest, Williamsburg tied 5th, Emporia 4th, Wallops Island tied 8th. Now to the far western/southwestern part of the state, and these numbers are high. Wise 1st, Pennington Gap 1st, Pulaski 3rd, Richlands tied 1st, Wytheville 5th, Pearisburg 2nd, Abington 4th, Covington 3rd, Hot Springs 1st, Gathright Dam tied 3rd and my own in 4th. Yes, that is a cross section and not ALL locations, but are there enough 1's and 2's to overcome the 8's, 7's, 6's and 11's? And was it warmer back in the 30's? Just pondering.

 

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

[TheClimateChanger]

9 minutes ago, wxdude64 said:

IF it is a record, it has just squeaked over previous mark. Looking across the state these are the numbers going back ONLY to 1980, mainly because that is what my numbers go back to.

Lynchburg tied 4th highest, Roanoke 7th highest, Danville 6th highest, Blacksburg 1st, Dulles tied 4th, Reagan National 8th, Charlottsville 8th highest, Staunton 1st, Dale Enterprise tied 6th, Front Royal 2nd, Norfolk 11th, Richmond tied 8th highest, Williamsburg tied 5th, Emporia 4th, Wallops Island tied 8th. Now to the far western/southwestern part of the state, and these numbers are high. Wise 1st, Pennington Gap 1st, Pulaski 3rd, Richlands tied 1st, Wytheville 5th, Pearisburg 2nd, Abington 4th, Covington 3rd, Hot Springs 1st, Gathright Dam tied 3rd and my own in 4th. Yes, that is a cross section and not ALL locations, but are there enough 1's and 2's to overcome the 8's, 7's, 6's and 11's? And was it warmer back in the 30's? Just pondering.

 

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.

[wxdude64]

8 minutes ago, wxdude64 said:

IF it is a record, it has just squeaked over previous mark. Looking across the state these are the numbers going back ONLY to 1980, mainly because that is what my numbers go back to.

Lynchburg tied 4th highest, Roanoke 7th highest, Danville 6th highest, Blacksburg 1st, Dulles tied 4th, Reagan National 8th, Charlottsville 8th highest, Staunton 1st, Dale Enterprise tied 6th, Front Royal 2nd, Norfolk 11th, Richmond tied 8th highest, Williamsburg tied 5th, Emporia 4th, Wallops Island tied 8th. Now to the far western/southwestern part of the state, and these numbers are high. Wise 1st, Pennington Gap 1st, Pulaski 3rd, Richlands tied 1st, Wytheville 5th, Pearisburg 2nd, Abington 4th, Covington 3rd, Hot Springs 1st, Gathright Dam tied 3rd and my own in 4th. Yes, that is a cross section and not ALL locations, but are there enough 1's and 2's to overcome the 8's, 7's, 6's and 11's? And was it warmer back in the 30's? Just pondering.

 

I sorta answered my own question going back to 1930, Blacksburg, Roanoke and Lynchburg all dropped 4 more places.

[TheClimateChanger]

27 minutes ago, wxdude64 said:

I sorta answered my own question going back to 1930, Blacksburg, Roanoke and Lynchburg all dropped 4 more places.

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.