July and August Were the Hottest Missoula Has Ever Been
Just in case you were complaining about the hot, dry summer of 2022, you can now back up that complaint with solid statistics from the National Weather Service in Missoula.
We spoke to Senior Meteorologist Bob Nester who provided the numbers he had just gathered on Monday morning.
“We put together our summer seasonal stats from June 1 to the current day,” began Nester. “This July and August combined were the hottest on record in Missoula with an average temperature 73.3 which broke the record set in 2007,” said Nester. “It was also the hottest August on record with the average temperature 74.5 which broke a 51-year-old record that was set in 1971.”
Nester said the number of days where Missoula reached 100 degrees or higher was also impressive.
“Some other notable stats that are pretty telling were that we reached 100 degrees for 10 days this year, nearly matching the record of 11 set in 2007,” he said. “We also set a record for the most number of days of 95 degrees or greater. Right now it's 29, and the previous record was 25 in 2007, however, it's very possible we’ll reach 95 or greater today or tomorrow, which may depend on how much smoke we have in the air.”
We’ll come up a little short in another statistic, according to Nester’s numbers.
“The record for reaching 90 degrees or more was 53 and it was set in 2007,” he said. “We've reached 49 days as of today, so we're likely not going to break that record, given the fact that today and tomorrow are going to be our hottest days for the rest of the year. Just given the outlook beyond Wednesday, we're going to go back into more of a seasonal pattern, which we really haven't had in a couple of months.”
Hand in hand with the heat, precipitation in the Garden City nearly reached a new low in 2022 as well, according to Nester.
“For the three months of June through August, we recorded 2.4 inches of precipitation,” he said. “Just for July and August alone, we recorded point 3.8 inches. This data goes back to 1948, so for that period of 1948 to the present this was the fourth driest July and August on record.”
High temperatures will range from the low to mid 80s through the week under a sunny sky.
Air quality in Missoula was reported as Moderate on Monday afternoon, despite the smoke sitting in the valley.