Over 100 High Temperature Records Per Day in July Outnumber Cold Records by 17 to 1
The 3,135 new daily high temperature records in July 2012, over 100 per day, exceeded cold records by a factor of 16.6 to 1. The heat record count was the highest since the phenomenal 6,182 in March. For the summer to date (June-July), the ratio is now 7.9 to 1. For 2012 overall, the ratio of 11.8 to 1 is over 4 times the value for 2011.
The heat record count is a little less than half of the 6,788 records set in the record hottest month of July 1936, which is actually quite impressive given the additional 76 years of data since then. Furthermore, this July's ratio is 23% higher than the 13.5 in 1936.