Tim Vasquez
EF5
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2003
- Messages
- 3,411
With temperatures reaching 102-103 at Norman and OKC today, I figured it's worth checking out the hottest day on record for that area.
On August 11, 1936, Oklahoma City officially reached 113 degrees, which remains its all-time highest temperature.
Here is the analysis that morning:
I marked some interesting features on this map in color. One of them is a back-door front across northeast Oklahoma from an unseasonably strong Great Lakes high. Don't let it fool you, though. Highs across Indiana and Ohio were still around 90.
I also drew in two subsynoptic lows along that front; one on the KS-OK border and one near Dallas. Presumably both of them strengthened baroclinically and were able to feed enough downslope air across OK and NW TX to raise temperatures even higher than they would have otherwise.
After the day was done, here's the numbers.
The 114 reading differs from the 113 listed on the NWS OUN climatology; I'm not sure why that is but it's still the hottest on record. I can't begin to imagine that overnight low of 82 in an era where air conditioning wasn't all that widespread.
EDIT: The second hottest day at OKC was July 6, 1996 when the airport saw 110. Here is the surface map, and it's very interesting that this shows almost the same configuration of fronts and lows. Interestingly the Great Lakes highs in 1996 strengthened spectacularly by August, and Kansas City was seeing 60s for afternoon highs if I remember correctly, and OKC temperatures were running 10-20 degrees below normal.
Tim
On August 11, 1936, Oklahoma City officially reached 113 degrees, which remains its all-time highest temperature.
Here is the analysis that morning:
![1936a.jpg](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.weathergraphics.com%2Ftim%2F1936a.jpg&hash=ed8036db28608bcbe1bba8dec7fda59e)
I marked some interesting features on this map in color. One of them is a back-door front across northeast Oklahoma from an unseasonably strong Great Lakes high. Don't let it fool you, though. Highs across Indiana and Ohio were still around 90.
I also drew in two subsynoptic lows along that front; one on the KS-OK border and one near Dallas. Presumably both of them strengthened baroclinically and were able to feed enough downslope air across OK and NW TX to raise temperatures even higher than they would have otherwise.
After the day was done, here's the numbers.
![1936b.jpg](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.weathergraphics.com%2Ftim%2F1936b.jpg&hash=6c16cfac7e838af714830904614fab68)
The 114 reading differs from the 113 listed on the NWS OUN climatology; I'm not sure why that is but it's still the hottest on record. I can't begin to imagine that overnight low of 82 in an era where air conditioning wasn't all that widespread.
EDIT: The second hottest day at OKC was July 6, 1996 when the airport saw 110. Here is the surface map, and it's very interesting that this shows almost the same configuration of fronts and lows. Interestingly the Great Lakes highs in 1996 strengthened spectacularly by August, and Kansas City was seeing 60s for afternoon highs if I remember correctly, and OKC temperatures were running 10-20 degrees below normal.
![1936c.jpg](/proxy.php?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.weathergraphics.com%2Ftim%2F1936c.jpg&hash=829a71d83139314b00be4b98cadb9181)
Tim