Hot, Sure, But It’s Been Hotter In St. George

This weekend a friend of mind said, "I can't tell you how many times someone has come up to me and said, 'Man, it's hot outside,' as if it should be anything else. It's summer in St. George. What did they expect?"

He managed to squeeze that comment in right before I was about to say, "Man, it's hot outside."

After his comment, I kept my thoughts to myself. But it did get me to thinking that it must certainly be hotter than it's ever been. I mean, there were talks of us breaking an all-time high temperature on Sunday (it didn't happen).

We've already had so many days just this month of over 100 degrees.

So, is it hotter this year than it has been before or not?

Well, in July of 1984, the average high temp in St. George was 104 degrees with the hottest day reaching 108.

In July of 1985, the average high was 105 with St. George setting an all-time high at 117.

A handful of years later, in July of 1988, the average high was 109.

Fast forward to this July. On Sunday we reached 114. Hot for sure, but just in the last 40 years we've seen hotter days on at least a half-dozen occasions.

As for the average highest temperature, so far this month we are averaging a high of 105 degrees. Five times in the last 40 years we've averaged at least that and twice (in 1988 and in 2003) we've averaged hotter high temperatures.

Here are the numbers:

YEAR --  AVG HIGH, HOTTEST DAY
1984 -- 104, 108
1985 --  105, 117
1986 -- 103, 106
1987 -- 100, 106
1988 -- 109, 111
1989 -- 105, 108
1990 -- 100, 108
1991 -- 97, 103
1992 -- 94, 106
1993 -- 98, 106
1994 -- 102, 107
1995 -- 101, 110
1996 -- 104, 111
1997 -- 99, 108
1998 -- 101, 113
1999 -- 96, 108
2000 -- 102, 111
2001 -- 100, 111
2002 -- 104, 113
2003 -- 106, 113
2004 -- 102,  108
2005 -- 105, 113
2006 -- 103, 111
2007 -- 104, 115
2008 -- 102, 109
2009 -- 104, 113
2010 -- 104, 111
2011 -- 101, 107
2012 -- 98, 111
2013 -- 100, 111
2014 -- 101, 109
2015 -- 97, 106
2016 -- 102, 111
2017 -- 102, 111
2018 -- 103, 109
2019 -- 100, 107
2020 -- 103, 109
2021 -- 101, 117
2022 -- 102, 109
2023 -- 105, 114

After crunching the numbers, it turns out my friend was spot on. See, even with the now ubiquitous man-made climate change talks and the threat of the melting polar caps and rising seas, St. George just isn't hotter now than it was 40 years ago.