By Anthony Sagliani
STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — AccuWeather.com reports from New York City, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., Chicago, St. Louis, Dallas and Phoenix, July has been a month of blistering heat and relentless drought across much of the county. Now that the month is over, what do the numbers reveal?
Preliminarily, an astonishing 4,313 record high temperatures were reached across the country for the month of July, according to NOAA and the National Climatic Data Center.
Two-hundred ninety-nine of these record highs were the warmest temperatures ever observed for the entire month, and an incredible 171 records were the all-time highest temperatures ever observed.
Temperatures during the night were also among the highest ever observed, with a sweaty 3,545 record warmest nights over the course of the month.
The reason for this incredible heat has been the location of the jet stream, a thin river of air miles high that guides the path of potential storms.
Unusually strong high pressure developed over much of the central part of the nation, an area where crops have been withering for months.
This high pressure pushed the jet stream much farther north than usual, and there was virtually no chance of rain.
Additionally, since there was no rain and less moisture for the sun’s energy to evaporate, most of the power went into heating the ground, and the result was weeks of searing heat.
The first few days of August look to be no different across the nation’s Heartland.
Temperatures Wednesday, Aug. 1, will poke above 110 degrees from Oklahoma City, Okla., to Wichita, Kan., and many more records are likely to fall by the end of the week.
Visit AccuWeather.com for all the latest on the extreme heat.
Posted Aug. 1, 2012