July Climate Update

The National Climatic Data Center recently released its July 2011 National Climate Overview.  July featured below average temperatures in the far west of the United States, but scorching heat in the eastern 2/3 of the country.

Overall, the July US temperature was 2.7F above the 20th century average and the fourth warmest on record.  Texas, Oklahoma, and Delaware saw their hottest Julys ever.  Dallas observed temperatures of 100F or higher on 30 of 31 days.  The mean temperature in Oklahoma City was an obscene and record setting  89.2F!  Washington D.C. saw its warmest month on record with a mean temperature of 84.5F.  On the other hand, summer has yet to appear in Washington State, which remained mired in persistent troughing and observed well-below average temperatures.

Thanks to our cool spring and summer, for the year-to-date (Jan–Jul), Utah remains below average.

For those keeping score, the last year that the annual temperature in Utah was below the 1961-1990 mean temperature (the so-called "very old climate normals") was 1993.

We'll see how the fall turns out, but perhaps I'll be able to add a blue bar to this graph at the end of the year.