2015 Summer Review

Meteorological summer has ended, giving us the chance to look at how this summer’s average temperatures compare to the historical records.

Boise, Phoenix, Portland, and Seattle all had their hottest summers on record. The rest of the West and much of the Southeast were also hotter than normal. Most of the rest of the country was near normal or hotter, although a small area from the Great Lakes to the Ohio Valley was running on the cool side.

Naturally, some locations had hotter summers than others. But as carbon dioxide emissions continue to climb and greenhouse gas concentrations build in the atmosphere, summers will continue to trend hotter nationwide, and the relatively milder ones will begin to fade into memory.

The summer heat fits the recent global temperature patterns. July was the hottest month on record, and 2015 is still on pace to be the hottest year in the books.

Methodology: Data was retrieved from RCC-ACIS.org at 8:45am on September 1. Summer average temperature is based on daily temperature average for June 1 - August 31. Years with more than 10% of data missing were excluded from analysis.