UPDATE 7/7: 60 new record highs were set yesterday in the Northeast, including the 105 at Baltimore. Their all-time high temperature is only 107! UPDATE 6 PM: Many stations hit 103-104 degrees today; but 105 was observed at KBWI (Baltimore); an incredible 106 was measured at Williamsburg, Virginia (KJGG) and Frederick, MD (KFDK). At my home weather station, I hit 98 which was probably the hottest I have observed since moving here in 1998.

According to the National Weather Service, the following stations hit 103 degrees today, setting new daily records:

New York City (Central Park)
New York City (La Guardia)
Newark, NJ*
Wilmington, Delaware

The NWS notes: "SENSOR CALIBRATION ERROR OCCURRED AT NEWARK NJ. OFFICIAL TEMPERATURE OF 103 WAS MEASURED BY FAA CONTRACT OBSERVER." (I'm not sure whether that meant the temperature was too low or too high).

ORIGINAL REPORT: Unless you've been living under a rock you've probably heard about the July 2010 Heat Wave in the mid-Atlantic and Northeast. Here are some interesting facts you may not have heard:

- Newark, New Jersey rose to 95 degrees by 8:51 am and 100 by 10:51! It reached 102.4 as of this blog reading. Their all-time record high is only 105. (Screen capture of Newark Weather Page below from AccuWeather.com).

- It hadn't been 100 degrees in New York City or Philadelphia since 2001 according to this AccuWeather.com news story about the heat wave. That streak ended at 12:51 PM today when Central Park hit 100.

- Although only 16 daily high temperature records have been broken so far this month in the Northeast (through yesterday), but a lot of big cities are on that list, which means the media is paying extra attention.

- If it's not a widespread record-breaker, this heat wave will be remembered for its length - today is the third day over 95 for Philly & NYC and tomorrow will likely be the fourth. A heat wave is defined however as days over 90 in a row, for which we still have a ways to go - Central Park, NYC experienced a 12-day heat wave in 1953.

- Here at my home weather station in State College, Pennsylvania, home of AccuWeather HQ [Google Map], I've gone up 57 degrees since my very unusual reading of 39 degrees on June 30th. I reached 96 yesterday. The local airport officially recorded 94, as did Penn State, setting a new record. It's rare for temperatures to get to 95 here, in fact from records here at AccuWeather dating back to 1992, it would appear it has never been above 95.

We've received several pictures on AccuWeather.com Facebook today of people's weather station or thermometer readouts, here is my contribution. This is the Ambient 7-Day Weather Forecaster & Weather Beacon that I reviewed over Christmas. Both receive weather data wirelessly from AccuWeather.com; the Forecaster glows red (hard to tell in the picture but it is) when temperatures are above 90; the Beacon when they are forecast to be in the 90s.

The region is also progressing into a serious drought. The areas colored red on the NWS Precip Analysis image below have had 0 to 5 percent of their normal precipitation for the last two weeks - in other words, close to zero rain. If you zoom out to a month, things get a little better but most of the area is still under 1/4 normal, with large pockets of 10%. This doesn't officially qualify as even a Moderate drought yet, but it has taken a big toll on lawns and fields.