Summer is the hottest time of the year, no doubt, and this July definitely brought the heat.
Meteorological summer kicked off with June placing as the second warmest June on record in Corpus Christi. Why not top that?
This July was the hottest July on record in Corpus Christi. Not only that, it was the second hottest month ever recorded for Corpus Christi with an average temperature of 88.0°F - just 0.3°F shy of the all-time record set in August 2012.
Not only was it hot, it was also pretty dry. We only picked up 0.39" of rain compared to our normal 2.50"+ of rain. Most of that rain fell on July 5 and 6. Thanks to a quarter inch of rain, the 6th was our only below-average afternoon high. We had no average highs - all other thirty days were above-average.
This July, we also recorded the highest average maximum temperature. Our average high was 98.5°F, again beating out the previous record by 0.3°F.
That average high temperature was given a big boost from the record-shattering amount of 100-degree afternoons.
The previous record (three 100-degree July days) has been tied numerous times. This year, we nearly quadrupled that record with 11 100-degree afternoons.
Those 11 days added to the six from June, bringing our total number of 100-degree days to 17 for the year. Through the end of July, that's the most on record...by a lot.
It's not a fair comparison - but it is eye-opening - 2012 holds the record for the most 100-degree days in a year. However, only six 100-degree days had been recorded through the end of July 2012.
We've already tacked on another 100-degree day on August 1. We'll definitely be giving 2012 a run for its money this summer.
The hottest high temperature this month was 103°F on July 16 - only two degrees off from the hottest temperature ever recorded in July. This also ties June 21 for the hottest day of 2023 so far in Corpus Christi.
We set five new record highs and tied three record highs.
Our coolest high temperature was 85°F (July 6 - when it rained). The second coolest high was 94°F, almost ten degrees hotter.
The coolest low temperature we experienced was 73°F (July 29).
We had Heat Advisories and Excessive Heat Warnings galore - again.
This month, we added 29 Heat Advisories and 14 Excessive Heat Warnings to our running total in Corpus Christi. (This is given that when we have an Excessive Heat Warnings, we also qualify for a Heat Advisory.)
This brings our running total of Excessive Heat Warnings to 27 for 2023. That's nine times the number we've seen in the past five years combined.
Unfortunately, this next week looks like we'll continue to set records with daily highs at or above 100 each day.
This summer will definitely go down as one of the hottest in Corpus Christi's history - possibly the hottest.
