Record Temperatures Across Southwest Missouri and Southeast Kansas.

A persistent ridge of high pressure, centered over the plains for the past few weeks, has lead to temperatures in excess of 100 degrees across much of the region. Since the last week of June, there have been limited breaks in the consistently hot temperatures. In addition to the extreme heat, the high pressure over the region has acted to suppress rainfall. This has resulted in drought conditions slowly beginning to affect portions of the Ozarks.

Heat safety rules and guidelines...

Heat is the number one weather related killer, especially to the elderly, infants and people with chronic health problems. Heat is especially dangerous to those who live in urban areas where the heat is enhanced due to concentrations of concrete, which is slow to release heat at night.

Remember that while heat related illness and death can occur due to exposure to intense heat in just one afternoon, heat stress on the body has a cumulative effect, making long lasting periods of high heat particularly deadly.

 

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Below are some statistics concerning the heat for some locations across the Missouri Ozarks and extreme southeast Kansas for this month.

Number of days with highs at or above 100 degrees in July 2011...

Springfield   8 days

Joplin       19 days

Pittsburg KS 15 days

 

Number of days with highs at or above 95 degrees in July 2011...

Springfield  21 days

Joplin       27 days

Pittsburg KS 26 days

Vichy/Rolla  11 days

West Plains  11 days

 

Record average temperature and ranking for the month of July 2011...

Location         Avg temp       Ranking       Highest Temp/Year

Springfield         84.6          3rd           85.5  1934

Joplin              87.7          3rd           89.4  1954

Pittsburg KS        87.0          1st           86.0  1954 (previous record)

Vichy/Rolla         82.1          4th           86.0  1980

West Plains         81.4          5th           83.1  1980

 

Monthly rainfall totals and monthly ranking for July 2011...

Location         Avg temp       Ranking       Driest  Year

Springfield        1.71         28th driest     0.33  1953

Joplin             0.83         10th driest     0.00  1946

Pittsburg KS       1.00          6th driest     0.37  1970

Vichy/Rolla        2.02         15th driest     0.85  2007

West Plains        2.79         31st driest     0.38  1953

 

Climate facts...

Though there is no official definition of a heat wave, below are some interesting facts regarding high heat events across southeast Kansas and the Missouri Ozarks.

Average number of days maximum temperatures are greater than or equal to 90 degrees F...

Month         June     July    august     length of record

Springfield     6       15       14         1940 to 2010

Joplin          8       18       17         1940 to 2010

Rolla/Vichy     5       13       11         1948 to 2010

West Plains     5       11       14         2000 to 2010

 

Greatest number of days in a month maximum temperatures were greater than or equal to 90 degrees F...

                 June         July        August     length of record

              days  year   days  year   days  year

Springfield    19   1954    29   1954    30   1980     1940 to 2010

Joplin         28   1953    31   1954    30   1983     1940 to 2010

Rolla/Vichy    27   1952    25   2005    25   2007     1948 to 2010

West Plains    15   2010    24   2010    24   2010     2000 to 2010

 

Greatest number of consecutive days of maximum temperatures greater than or equal to 90 degrees F...

                days      start date      end date     length of Record

Springfield      27       27 Jul 1983     22 Aug 1983    1940 to 2010

Joplin           46       16 Jun 1954     31 Jul 1954    1940 to 2010

Rolla/Vichy      28       05 Jun 1952     02 Jul 1952    1948 to 2010

West plains      22       14 Jul 2010     04 Aug 2010    2000 to 2010

 

Greatest number of consecutive days of maximum temperatures greater than or equal to 100 degrees F...

                days      start date      end date     length of

Record

Springfield       9       12 Jul 1980     20 Jul 1980    1940 to 2010

Joplin           19       03 Jul 1980     21 Jul 1980    1940 to 2010

Rolla/Vichy      14       07 Jul 1980     20 Jul 1980    1948 to 2010

West plains       4       10 Aug 2007     13 Aug 2007    2000 to 2010

 

Highest temperature ever recorded...

                temperature      date

Springfield        113 F         14 Jul 1954

Joplin             115 F         14 Jul 1954

Rolla/Vichy        113 F         18 Jul 1954

West Plains        104 F         12 Aug 2007

 

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