By touching 90 degrees on Saturday, Washington’s high temperature allowed our latest heat wave to survive for another day.
We have had only five heat waves all year, including an eight-day spell earlier this month. So in a sense we may have paid our summertime dues. Yet, it also seems that we have been spared the torrid times of years past.
Despite talk of heat elsewhere in America, not one high-temperature record has been set here since May. On July 16, the thermometer read 98, but that has not been exceeded or even matched. The closest contender was July 3, at 97 degrees.
June and July were both hotter than normal, but by no more than a degree. August, however, although not memorably intolerable, has been more than three degrees hotter than normal.
