The 80s keep coming.... (7-18-12)
On June 27th the high temperature in Syracuse hit 79 degrees. It was the end of what was a nice three day stretch of 70 degree weather. A welcomed relief from the mid 90s we had just a few days before. That was also the last day we had a high below 80 degrees. That streak is now up to 21 days and counting. Personally, I think this may be just as telling as the amount of 90 degree weather when gauging summer warmth.You may not think this year’s 21 day streak is not a lot but it is actually the 7th longest such streak of 80 F plus days in Syracuse history.| Year | Days | Consecutive
80+ Days |
| 1949 | June 10-Aug 22 | 43 |
| 1955 | June 28-Aug 7 | 41 |
| 2011 | July 10-Aug 2 | 24 |
| 2001 | July 29-Aug 20 | 23 |
| 2010 | July 3-July 24 | 22 |
| 1916 | July 11-July 31 | 21 |
| 2012 | June 28-Today | 21 |
That’s it in over 110 years of record keeping. It seems a little strange. After all, our ‘normal’ high temperatures this time of year is in the low 80s. Surely our 80 degree streaks must be longer and more commonplace. Nope, not the case. It may be one of the most head-scratching lists I have in my climate files in the weather office.I think, along with 90 degree weather, these 80 degree streaks are a good measure of the overall ‘hottness’ of the summer. Look at the years that are way ahead of the pack - 1955 & 1949. These were two of the hottest summers in Syracuse history. In most seasonable summers, you get a week or so of hot weather, say some upper 80s, maybe low 90s, then a strong cold front is dragged through by the jet stream winds aloft travelling along the border with Canada. This scenario brings us a welcomed break back into the 70s, at least for a short time. The jet stream winds are farther north across southern Canada this summer (so far) and the intrusions of cooler air have been fewer and when they do arrive they have packed less of a punch. We are likely to add to the streak tomorrow but there are some questions as to whether it will continue into Friday. A little extra cloud cover may hold us back. Stay tuned.100 Degree Plus....Just a couple of loose ends from yesterday’s 101 degree weather. It was the 10th time we have reached 100 F in Syracuse record keeping history. The 4th time this has happened since 2001.We talked quite a bit about everything coming together for us to reach 100 degrees and that happened yesterday but there were still some subtle things going on in the atmosphere that cost us a chance at reaching the all time high of 102 F. On Tuesday we actually reached 100 F on two separate occasions. The first came at about 1:30 pm. Shortly after that some cumulus clouds built up and we ‘cooled’ to 99 F. Those clouds thinned out and we started to climb again. We reached the official high of 101 F at 3:40 pm. I’m thinking if we didn’t have that extra cloud cover during the 2 o’clock hour we could have reached 102 F.The lowest temperature yesterday was 76 F which gave us a mean temperature (high + low divided by 2) of 89 F. That almost made it the overall warmest day on record in Syracuse. However, on the day we reached 102 F (July 9th 1936) our low was only 81 F which gave us a mean temperature of 92 F!
Copyright 2012 Newport Television LLC All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
