Phoenix's July from Hell

August 05, 2023

You may have heard that Phoenix gets hot sometimes. July 2023 was something else. To start, it was by far the hottest month in the city's history. The average temperature for the month was 102.8 °F. That was the average temperature. The average daily high was 114.7 °F, and the average low was 90.8 °F. In all, July was nearly 4 degrees higher than the previous record from 2020, and 7.5 degrees above average.

Except for July 31st, every day during the month saw a high temperature of at least 110 degrees. There were an amazing 31 days in a row of at least 110, shattering the previous record of 18 days set in 1974. Perhaps more remarkably, there was span of 16 days where the temperature never fell below 90, even at night.

While Phoenix didn't break it's all time high temperature record of 122 °F, July did see 3 days of 119 °F and 3 of 118 °F. It also witnessed the highest daily low temperature ever recorded, 97 °F.

Finally, Phoenix set or tied a daily record for high temperature in 13 different days in July. So that means for 42% of the days during the month, it was the hottest day ever for that day of the year.

In other news, the population of the Phoenix metro area has grown by 54% since the 2000 census.