July 2011 Heat Records Double Those Of Last Year
With July just behind us the National Weather Service confirms what you probably already knew: It was really seriously totally sweatily hot over the majority of the United States. In fact there were 2,676 tied or broken heat records across the nation, doubling last year's stats. All told about 60 people died from the heat last month.
Particularly hot records included: Newark, New Jersey setting an all time record high at 108°F; Oklahoma City experiencing 100°+ temperatures for 27 days of the month; Dallas passing 30 days above 100°, moving towards the record of 42 days in a row.
PBS points out, via the widget at above, that so far this year, at the time of this writing, there have been 3,822 record high temperatures set in the US . The year has been so hot in fact, that the National Weather Service has recalculated what "normal" temperatures are, officially bumping up "normal" by half a degree.
How much hotter will "normal" likely get? Research shows that by the midpoint of this century, the coolest summers on average will still be hotter than the hottest of the 20th century.