Temperatures on Track to Set Marks for One of Hottest Summers on Record

Even with a few days lingering in August, forecasters are pretty confident the steamy heat will continue, making the past three months one of the hottest summers we’ve seen.

In fact if you’ve seen a warmer June, July and August in Tampa or St. Petersburg, you’re really old.

Unless an ice age surprises forecasters before Wednesday, the past three months would rank as the warmest in Tampa since the weather service started records in 1890 and warmest in St. Petersburg since 1914.

The National Weather Service won’t have the final numbers until Wednesday, but the three months meteorologists consider summer look like they’ll produce an average temperature about .3 of a degree warmer in Tampa than the former record in 1998.

The three months in St. Petersburg could be a degree warmer than 1987, the previous record year.

By the way, the top five hottest meteorological summers in Tampa are rounded out by 2005 at No. 5, 2009 at No. 4 and 2007 at No. 3.

This should be no real shock for folks who have sweated through the past three months, and especially August.

The month should finish in the top five hottest Augusts on record in a number of places, including Tampa, St. Petersburg, Lakeland, Brooksville and Inverness.

There is no weather station in Pasco with those temperature records, but it’s a cinch the county didn’t escape the cloying heat.

Things aren’t going to change much in the coming week.

The weather service issued heat advisories for Hillsborough and Pinellas counties during the weekend, mainly because overnight wind moving off the Gulf of Mexico is keeping the mornings so warm.

Add in the soupy humidity and you’ll get afternoons with the heat index in the low 100s.

The next few days may not quite hit the threshold for more weather service heat advisories, but it would be difficult to tell the difference by walking outside.

High pressure will stick around along with excessive humidity swept over us off the Gulf and Caribbean Sea. All that moisture means it will feel hotter during the day and won’t cool much at night.

In fact, the weather service expects to see more mornings in Tampa and St. Petersburg when the low temperature is above 80 degrees than any year on record.

For Pasco County, your mornings will feel better around Land O’ Lakes but afternoons will be slightly cooler closer to the coast in New Port Richey.

Mornings in New Port Richey, and along most of the Gulf coast, may not cool below the upper edges of the 70s by dawn. Around Land O’ Lakes, mornings could get to the middle 70s.

It switches in the afternoons with New Port Richey expected to see the lower 90s, a couple degrees cooler than Land O’ Lakes.

Your rain will be spotty but about normal.

The weather service says spotty rain has contributed to the excessive heat in places with rainfall running a few inches below normal in some places and a bit above in others.

Pasco looks to be one of the places in the below normal category.

Rainfall the past three months at St. Leo, the only site the weather service reports in Pasco, is about 2 inches below normal.

Rain in other locations nearby is also running below normal with Tarpon Springs coming in about 2 inches shy of typical and Brooksville 3 inches low.

That all could change with one thunderstorm parking overhead, though.