We’re Still No. 1 here in St. George When We’re Talking Heat (Bonus list: The hottest and coldest temps in each state)

Spend an hour or two outside in July or August in our beloved city of St. George and you'll feel the full wrath of the Mojave Desert. It's nearly insufferably hot, dry and sometimes even painful.

But now we're enjoying the fruits of our blistering Julys and Augusts, with temperatures this time of year in the 40s and 50s, while much of the rest of the state is gripped in sub-freezing climate with snow and ice ruling the day.

We live here for this, today, the weather being mild in the winter. No icy roads. No slushy gunk on our cars and our streets. Most of us don't even own a heavy coat (why would we, right?).

So it probably wouldn't surprise anyone that St. George owns the hottest temperature ever recorded in the state -- 117 degrees on July 5, 1985. We also own the two, three, four and five spots on the hottest day list.

We're OK with that. In fact, we own it like a boss because we know that  one day that same year -- 1985 -- everyone else in the state was cleaning up from a snowstorm, or skidding across the interstate after hitting a patch of black ice.

Being the hottest place in the state is fine with us southern Utahns. And even though it's hot in July and August, we're not nearly as bad as Nevada (125 degrees back in 1994) or Arizona (128 degrees that same year).

Besides, you don't have to shovel sunshine!

For the record, St. George averages a high temperature of about 62 degrees in the months of November through February, and even in our coldest month (December) we tend to reach about 53 degrees for a high during the day.

In Utah, the coldest temperature ever recorded was over 100 years ago -- in 1913 a place called East Portal (a campground located in the Strawberry Valley in the Uinta Mountains due east of Park City) was -50 (that's 50 degrees below zero).

Here's a list of the extreme highs and lows throughout the country.