Jacksonville avoids record summer heat

Rain helped stunt summer hotter than the Dust Bowl

Aerial view August 5, 2021, at Shasta Lake. California's largest water reservoir is at 30% capacity impacting hydroelectric power, tourism and agriculture. (George Rose, Getty Images)

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Meteorological summer is over, and it was the hottest season most Americans have ever lived through.

From June through August in the U.S., the average temperature slightly exceeded the record heat of the 1936 Dust Bowl Summer at 2.6 degrees above average.

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This summer tied as the second hottest on record across the Northern Hemisphere, according to NOAA scientists.

August alone was Earth’s sixth warmest on record north of the equator.

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The core of this summer’s U.S. heat was located west of the Continental Divide and across the northern tier of states into New England and Florida.

But the heat wasn’t as bad here in Jacksonville. The past three months have all been cooler than average thanks to the extra rain.

Much of Georgia and a pocket in north Florida had a cooler than average summer in the green and blue colors.

The west needs our rain. Lake Mead, the water source for seven states, is more than 15 feet below levels from the past two years.

Lake Mead water levels have dropped over 15 feet from August 7, 2000 (left), and August 9, 2021 (right).

Hurricanes are getting stronger, and the cost associated with them is soaring.

For the second year in a row, Louisiana was slammed by a Category 4 hurricane. Ida’s destruction cost between $43-64 billion, which puts it in the top-10 most expensive weather disasters in world history.

Tropical Storm Fred’s landfall in the Florida Panhandle is one of only eight below-hurricane-strength tropical systems to inflict more than $1 billion in damage to the U.S.


About the Author:

After covering the weather from every corner of Florida and doing marine research in the Gulf, Mark Collins settled in Jacksonville to forecast weather for The First Coast.