Thursday, June 24, 2010

Triple-Digit Heat Smashes Washington DC, Mid Atlantic Temperature Records

See here for more Washington DC weather records.

See here for June 27 update.


June 24 Update: Here are the preliminary temperature record counts for the entire U.S. on June 24:
Warmest max temperature 36
Coldest min temperature 1
1 AM Update: It's not official, but the new record high minimum temperature of 78° appears to have held.

Evening Update: More record reports from major reporting locations (previous records in parentheses):
Richmond            102 (100, 1948)
Wallops Island VA 99 (92, 2002/1997)
New Bern NC 97 (96, 1960)
Atlantic City 99 (96, 1966)
Georgetown DE 97 (96, 1988)
Note that the Atlantic City record was broken by 3° in an observation history which extends back to 1874.

It's still 90° in Washington at 7 pm.

Late PM Update: The preliminary highs reported by the National Weather Service:
Washington National 100 @ 2:32 PM
Washington Dulles 97 @ 1:48 PM
Baltimore BWI 100 @ 1:54 PM
All of them are new records by 2° each. The previous Baltimore record had occurred 3 times in the past: 1966, 1908, 1894.

The Washington morning low of 78°, if it holds through midnight (1 am EDT), would also be a new record high minimum, beating the old record of 77° which has stood since 1874. Given the lack of rainfall so far, that seems like a distinct possibility. The 1874 record is the oldest of only 3 remaining 19th century daily high minimum records for June. A daily high minimum record (76°) has already been set this month on the 21st.

Here are some other high temperature records reported by the National Weather Service so far today (previous records in parentheses):
Raleigh            99 (tie, 1996)
Elizabeth City NC 99 (97, 1981)
Wilmington NC 98 (97, 1950)
Islip NY 93 (91, 2003)
Kennedy Airport NY 97 (95, 1966)
LaGuardia Airpt NY 95 (93, 2003)
PM Update: 3 pm temperatures:
Washington National  98
Washington Dulles 95
Baltimore BWI 100
Original post:
The official Washington DC temperature of 99° at 2 pm today has already broken the heat record for June 24 set in 1894 as readings continue to climb. That record was one of only 3 remaining June high temperature records from the 19th century, including the all-time June daily high of 102° on June 9, 1874. (By contrast, 5 daily low temperature records remain from the 19th century. Only one June daily low temperature record has been set since 1979, and that was 18 years ago, on June 22, 1992.)

Other temperatures around the region include:
Baltimore (BWI)   100 (old record 98, 1966)
Richmond 101 (old record 100, 1948)
Petersburg VA 100
Williamsburg VA 102
Patuxent River MD 100
Fredericksburg VA 99
Frederick MD 99
Leesburg VA 99
Ocean City MD 98

5 comments:

Arthur said...

Steve, I've been wondering how to get the records for our local weather station (Upton, NY, or at least Islip, NY). When I go to NWS it just shows Central Park, which isn't what I was looking for. And even that data seems limited. What's a good source?

CapitalClimate said...

Arthur,
Recent daily and monthly data are here:
1. Click on product type
2. Select location (Islip is one of the listed locations)
Unfortunately, the archives go back only to 2005.

Some limited summary data for the base period 1971-2000 are available under the "NOWData" tab.

Arthur said...

And actually the 1971-2000 data seem to be only from 1984 for Islip... But I was hoping for some more detailed data to download and play around with - the actual daily average temperatures, or highs and lows, going back to whenever or something like that. Does anybody post that online these days?

CapitalClimate said...

The period of record for Islip appears to go back only to 1984. The daily data can be ordered from National Climatic Data Center for $70 here.

CapitalClimate said...

Correction to previous comment:
The period of record apparently goes back to 1948, but only 1984 forward is available online.

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