One Down, One to Go

Yesterdays 100ºF high at the Salt Lake City airport was day 20 of 100 or more this summer.  We now sit just one day shy of tying the record, set in 1960 and 1994.

It will be interesting to see if we can reach it today.  If skies were clear, I'd say it was in the bag.  The 700-mb temperature yesterday morning was 15.2ºC and yesterday afternoon was 15.6ºC.  This morning's was even higher at 16.2ºC.  Thus, today's airmass is even warmer than yesterday's.

The problem is that there's more smoke over the airport today, as well as a few clouds.  This might be worth a degree of cooling.  Yesterday we were in the clear, but areas to the west like the Skull Valley and Northern Stansbury Mountains were in a thick pall of smoke, as shown by yesterday's MODIS image below.  

Source: NASA

Today, some smoke has drifted over the Salt Lake Valley.  So far (through 1 PM), however, temperatures are in line with yesterday's.  I think we will eke out 100, but it's going to be close.