Little relief from the heat after hottest July ever

Leaving the Dust Bowl in the dust, July was the hottest month in U.S. history, and August promises little relief.

By Erik M. Lunsford, AP

Leniel Fields of K&K Maintenance wipes his face in the heat as he maintains the grounds at the Franklin School Apartments near downtown St. Louis on July 23. St. Louis endured its hottest month on record in July, as did the nation as a whole.

By Erik M. Lunsford, AP

Leniel Fields of K&K Maintenance wipes his face in the heat as he maintains the grounds at the Franklin School Apartments near downtown St. Louis on July 23. St. Louis endured its hottest month on record in July, as did the nation as a whole.

July's average temperature for the contiguous USA was 77.6 degrees Fahrenheit, eclipsing the record set during the heart of the Dust Bowl in 1936, federal scientists announced Wednesday.

"The extent of the heat this year was much more widespread than in July 1936," says Jake Crouch of the National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, N.C.

After a brief cooling trend and occasional showers this week in the central USA, "the heat will try to make a big comeback next week," says AccuWeather senior meteorologist Jack Boston.

Some drought relief is possible in the fall in the central and southern Plains, but warm, dry weather should continue in the upper Midwest and around the Great Lakes, he says.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the average July temperature was 3.3 degrees above the 20th-century average and the hottest July and hottest month in records dating to 1895. The previous warmest month was July 1936 (77.4 degrees ).

This July and July 1936 featured a large ridge of high pressure over the center of the country that kept temperatures sizzling, Crouch says. The current high-pressure ridge, which prevents clouds and rain from forming, has been in place since March.

The worst July heat was in the Midwest, the Plains and along the Eastern Seaboard. In all, 44 states had above-average temperatures in July, although only Virginia saw its hottest July.

The heat has gone hand-in-hand with a relentless drought now encompassing almost 64% of the contiguous states, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, a federal website.

The January-July period was also the warmest first seven months of any year for the USA, NOAA says. The national temperature of 56.4 degrees was 4.3 above the long-term average. Most of the contiguous USA had record and near-record warmth for the seven months, except the Pacific Northwest, which was near average.

The heat has not created corresponding record demands on the power grid. Power company officials and energy analysts such as Jim Owen of the Edison Electric Institute, which follows electrical usage for private customers, say years of conservation practices — including utilities giving customers incentives to shut off air conditioning during peak demand — have paid off.

The U.S. power grid has been largely blackout-free through the heat wave, in contrast to widespread outages in India.

Globally, the weather has been warmer than average this year but not record hot. For instance, the South Pole's average July temperature of 76 degrees below zero was about average. On July 15, the low there hit a nippy -104 degrees.

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Experts: Oklahoma, not Texas, had hottest summer ever

TULSA, Okla. (AP) -- Oklahoma and Texas have argued for years about which has the best college football team, whose oil fields produce better crude, even where the state border should run. But in a hot, sticky dispute that no one wants to win, Oklahoma just reclaimed its crown.

By Sue Ogrocki, AP

Liz Moody and Stephanie Russell try to keep cool as they watch a softball game in Oklahoma City in July 2011. After recalculating data from 2011, climatologists report that Oklahoma suffered through the hottest summer ever recorded in the U.S.

By Sue Ogrocki, AP

Liz Moody and Stephanie Russell try to keep cool as they watch a softball game in Oklahoma City in July 2011. After recalculating data from 2011, climatologists report that Oklahoma suffered through the hottest summer ever recorded in the U.S.

After recalculating data from last year, the nation's climatologists are declaring that Oklahoma suffered through the hottest summer ever recorded in the U.S. last year - not Texas as initially announced last fall.

"It doesn't make me feel any better," joked Texas rancher Debbie Davis, who lives northwest of San Antonio.

In the new tally by the National Climatic Data Center, Oklahoma's average temperature last summer was 86.9 degrees, while Texas finished with 86.7 degrees. The previous record for the hottest summer was 85.2 degrees set in 1934 -- in Oklahoma.

"I'm from Oklahoma, and when you talk about the summer of 1934, there are a lot of connotations that go with that," said Deke Arndt, chief of the NCDC's climate monitoring branch in Asheville, N.C. "That whole climate episode - the Dust Bowl - that is a point in our state's history that we still look back to as transformative."

Yet the summer of 2011, "was warmer than all those summers that they experienced during the Dust Bowl," Arndt said.

Surprisingly, average summer temperatures are usually higher in states in the Southeast and southern Plains than in states in the Desert Southwest. For example, there are no "cool" spots in Oklahoma during a typical summer, while cooler parts of northern Arizona bring that state's overall average summer temperature down.

Also, the Desert Southwest's generally higher elevations and drier air lend themselves to lower overnight temperatures, which pulls the daily average down, Arndt said.

The record swap became apparent after extra data trickled in from weather stations and meteorological field reports across both states. That data also pushed up Oklahoma's mark as the hottest month ever by two-tenths of a degree, to 89.3 degrees in July 2011.

Oklahoma had experienced unusually dry, hot weather in the winter and spring, then summer brought regular triple-digit temperatures that fueled wildfires, prompted burn bans and led to water rationing in some communities.

"We didn't just barely surpass the previous summer record, we smashed it," said Gary McManus, Oklahoma's associate state climatologist. "That last summer was so far above and beyond what we consider normal, I don't think there will be another, compared to what we had."

Through the years, Texans and Oklahomans have fought over just about everything, from water rights to barbecue joints. Huge crowds attend the annual meeting of the University of Texas and University of Oklahoma football teams in Dallas.

It even took the states until 1999 to settle a boundary dispute that landed before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1894 -- before Oklahoma's statehood.

But residents on both sides of that now undisputed Texas-Oklahoma border want no part in the summer fight.

For Oklahoma rancher Monte Tucker, last summer was a breaking point, and it didn't make him feel any better Friday when he learned about his state's new dubious honor.

Last summer felt like "opening an oven after cooking bread," said Tucker, who ranches in Sweetwater, in western Oklahoma. "We basically got up right about sun-up and did all we could until 11 in the morning, and we basically shut down almost `till dark and kind of started up again.

"I don't want to do it again, I'll say that much," he said.

Last summer also took a toll on plants and trees, many of which were weakened by the intense heat.

"We had to stop planting last summer because it was silly to plant in 100-degree temperatures," said Stephen Smith, who works at Southwood Garden Center and Nursery in Tulsa.

"I've been in this business 30 years," he added. "And it was probably one of the worst temperatures I can remember."

Contributing: Doyle Rice, USA TODAY

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Britain has hottest October day on record (AP)

LONDON – Britain has experienced the hottest October day on record.

National weather service the Met Office says Saturday's temperature reached 85.8 F (29.9 C) at Gravesend in southeast England.

That is the highest October temperature since records began a century ago, beating the previous high of 84.9 F (29.4 C) reached on Oct. 4, 1985.

The average maximum temperature for early October is about 59 F (15 C).

After a cool and wet summer, much of Britain has been basking in several days of sun and unseasonably high temperatures. Forecasters say cooler temperatures should return by Tuesday.

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