Indian Summer? 3,614 Heat Records!
UPDATE: Meteo Madness Man (PREMIUM | PRO) said today in his blog (and yelled across the room to me): "I don't recall a time in the past 20 years that so many records were broken in a single week."
And to clear the air, various forecasters at AccuWeather have pointed out that this heat outbreak is considered "Indian Summer" ONLY for cities who had already dipped below 32 degrees this fall, by our definition, which is based on the idea of the warmth coming after "a killing frost." We don't have specific numbers for how hot it has to be to qualify, but recommendations are at least 10 degrees above normal.
It would be time consuming and nearly impossible to determine which cities qualify. To give you an idea of the area we're talking about, the map below shows locations that have dipped to, or below 32 F so far this Fall. Cities outside of these areas may not have officially qualified as "Indian Summer" by AccuWeather standards, and cities within these areas may not have broken their high temperatures (though there were few that didn't in the last week).
Bet you didn't realize it was that complicated. Well, like me, most forecasters are a bit obsessive-compulsive.
3,614 heat-related records set or tied in the last week. Assuming it doesn't get significantly hot again before winter, I think that number qualifies for a heck of an Indian Summer.*
Total Heat-Related Records Broken or Tied:
Total Heat-Related Records Broken:
Total Record Highs Broken:
Total Record MaxMins Broken:
Most Records Broken In One Day:
on October 7th
I don't have previous numbers to compare this to except for the August Heat Wave in the East that I blogged about, which these numbers beat slightly. So I can't say for sure how unusual this is, but the stats are very impressive and I certainly can't think of a worse heat wave in recent memory. Notice in the graph the extreme number of "MaxMin" broken. What this refers to is warm mornings and it's a testament to exactly how warm it has felt over the past week in the Eastern U.S. See disclaimers below about these statements.**
*Indian Summer was explained in a blog entry Monday. WikiPedia says that it "usually" refers to an occurrence after the first frost, which for most of the East, means this heat wave might not qualify.
**Disclaimers: MaxMin is actually temperatures during a 24-hour period, which may or may not be warm mornings, but usually are. Records are for the entire continental U.S. but are mostly eastern.
