BOISE, Idaho — July 2022 was a hot month for Boise. In fact, July 2022 went down in the record books as the 8th hottest July on record for Boise, with records going all the way back to 1877.
Monday, August 1st marked seven days in a row of over 100-degree temperatures; the most recent heat wave, following another 6-day stretch of 100°+ that Boise recorded earlier in the month.
All of this summer heat prompted one of KTVB's viewers to ask this question, "On Friday (7/29), Boise tied a record high temperature of 104 degrees with a 104 degree temperature in 1934. So, was global warming an issue that year, too?"
Meteorologist Bri Eggers took a look into Boise's record temperatures.
It is no secret that in Idaho's high desert climate, every summer has the potential of getting extremely hot. Every now and again, we see extremes or new records get set or tied, but in recent decades it has been happening more frequently.
To demonstrate this, it is important to look at the weather trends happening over the last several years, rather than just daily records.
Instead of just looking at the one record high temperature that was tied in Boise on 7/29, we looked at some of the hottest summers (the months of June, July and August) on record.
When looking at the top 10 hottest summers on record, 2021 comes in at the top spot. Also, nine out of the ten hottest recorded summers occurred on dates after 2000. However, there is that one obvious outlier in the 8th spot, the summer of 1961. Outliers like this example have often been used as an argument against climate change.
Instead of looking at that one outlier in the top 10 hottest summers, Bri broke down summer records from 1875-2021 (146 years). By breaking down 146 years of records into five different ranges of roughly 30 years, the data shows that more than half of the top 40 hottest summers on record have occurred in the most recent 30 years (1993-2021).
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