July 2022 - Just The Second July With Highs of 80+ On Every Day
A typical July in New York has six days with highs cooler than 80°. However, July 2022 had no such readings and joined July 1944 as the only other July in which every day had a high of 80° or warmer (it also happened in August 2015). The coolest high was 81°, which occurred twice. Overall, July 2022 was two degrees warmer than average (high/low of 87.3°/71.8°) and ranks as the 13th hottest July on record; it had the 8th warmest low, and tied for 16th warmest high.
The number of days with highs of 85° or warmer was 25. Only five other Julys have had more (in 2019, 2010, 1993, 1966, and 1944) and four others have had 25. The hottest reading was 95°, which occurred on three days, and the warmest low was 79°. Of the ten Julys with 25+ days of 85+, July 2022 had the fewest days of 87+ as it had 10 highs of 85° (7) and 86° (3).
The coolest low was 65° on the Fourth of July. Only five other Julys have had a chilliest low this mild or milder (the most recent was two years ago when the coolest low of 67° was the mildest coolest July reading on record).
During the first half of the month it appeared July's big story would be the very dry conditions as just 0.33" of rain was measured in Central Park through 7/15 - the least to fall in the first half of July since July 2002. And while a large portion of the metro area continued to suffer through dry conditions in the second half of the month (Newark's July total was just 0.55", JFK's was 1.10"), 4.22" fell in Central Park, which was double the typical amount. As a result, July's total rainfall ended up being very close to average (0.05" below). Much of the rain fell from isolated strong thunderstorms. The most to fall on one day, 1.85" on 7/18, was a record for the date.
A six-day heat wave, from 7/19-24, was the longest since the summer of 2013. The average high/low was 94°/77°. In addition to these six days, there were four other days with highs in the 90s (on 7/1 and 7/12-14); the total of 10 was three more than average. The hottest day of the month occurred on the last day of the heat wave, with a high of 95°/79°. Two other days during the heat wave, 7/20 and 7/23, had highs/lows of 95°/78°. (In addition to the large disparity in rain compared to Central Park, Newark also had a reecord-setting five-day streak of triple-digit highs).
Typically, June averages six lows in the 70s/80s and July averages 16. This summer the respective numbers were one and twenty-four. This increase of 23 days compared to June is the greatest increase from any June with 0, 1 , or 2 lows in the 70s. Only July 2020 and 2010 have had more lows in the 70s/80s than July 2022 (tied with three other years that had 24 such lows).
Finally, the 4.55" of rain that fell was the eighth time this amount was a monthly precipitation total. The most recent occurrence was in April 2019, and there was another July with this amount in 1916.
Here are July recaps from previous years: