With a big dome of high pressure over the top of the area, the main weather story has been the heat. Afternoon highs have been in the 90s since June 4th. So we are on Day 12 of “Highs greater than 90F” for the area.
Yes. That is hot. Extended heat is tough for folks without easy access to air conditioning. Especially when the overnight lows between 65F and 75F. Because you never really cool down.
So any day or two where temperatures are cooler than 90F are very helpful for those people without AC. And this is also true for plants. Livestock. Pets!
But how unusual is this kind of consecutive heat?
It depends.
Looking at data back to The Year 2000, the percent-chance that any given date featured a temperature of 90F or higher fluctuated a bit. But only one date features a chance less than 50-percent.
Most days, historically, feature a better than 50-percent chance that it features temperatures of 90F or higher. And there is a sharp incline from June 6th through June 10th. Then we bounce back-and-forth between about a 60-percent chance and about a 75-percent chance that any given day features a 90F temperature or higher.
So, an easy way to think of it is… there is a higher chance that any given date is warmer than 90F than the chance that it is 89F or cooler.
Given that, it is no surprise that we can see some lengthy stretches of 90F (or warmer) temperatures in June, July and August.
How lengthy? Lengthy!
The record is 61 days that ended on July 17th, 1960. That means, the 90s started in mid-May and last through the 4th of July and all the way to July 17th.
Whew!
The 10th-longest stretch was 42 days. That stretch ended on September 12, 2014 (my first summer in Hattiesburg). In fact, most of the 90F stretches were in late Summer and early Fall.
So, in order for us to approach a record-setting streak, we would need to go another full month with temperatures as warm as they are right now! That is another 30 days!
So how hot is this current stretch of hot?
Pretty hot, but not that hot….
