Cooler temps snap Hamilton warm-day streak, short of record
Published September 6, 2022 at 11:35 am
The official temperature in Hamilton stayed in the teens for two days, which snapped the bid for the longest streak of warm days.
Many Hamilton residents doubtlessly saw some upside in cooler temps — albeit it with exceptionally high mean humidity — over the back half of the Labour Day weekend. But they ended up being five days short of weathering a record skein of days without a break from 20C days. Summery heat and humidity is expected to make a comeback later this week, with a high of 29C forecast for Saturday (Sept. 10).
The recorded high of 17.9 C on Monday (Sept. 5) ended a streak of 102 days in a row with a high of at least 19C. One day earlier, a high of 19.9 C on Sunday ended the 101-day streak where the temperature reached 20.
Weather historian Rolf Campbell said the spring/summer/autumn solstice of 2016 retains both records. For a span of 107 consecutive days that year (June 9-Sept. 23), the daily high was 19C, including a 106-day streak of 20C days that began on the 10th of June.
This year has made it to 102 and 101 days, respectively. In 2012, there was a 105-day run of 19C days, so 2022 is third on that list.
🥈Streak over. After 101 consecutive days with maximum temperature ≥20°C in #Hamilton, the maximum temperature was only 19.9°C yesterday. We made it to 2nd place, only 5 days behind the record. #YHM #YhmWx #ONWx pic.twitter.com/JiuFA7rqqy
— Hamilton Weather Records🌤 (@YHM_Weather) September 5, 2022
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🥉Streak over. After 102 consecutive days with maximum temperature ≥19°C in #Hamilton, the maximum temperature was only 17.9°C yesterday. We made it to 3rd place, only 5 days behind the record. #YHM #YhmWx #ONWx pic.twitter.com/bxsQAlrH2U
— Hamilton Weather Records🌤 (@YHM_Weather) September 6, 2022
Mean-humidity mark set
Heat and humidity are not wholly one and the same, and Campbell says Hamilton set on-this-date mark for mean humidity on Monday. That reached 95.5 per cent on Sept. 5, which exceeds the more than 40-year-old mark of 94.2% that had stood since 1981. A check of Environment and Climate Change Canada records shows that was also a day where the temperature topped out at 20C.
Those are the only two instances in the last half century where the mean humidity topped 90 per cent on Sept. 5.
🥇With a mean humidity of 95.5%, yesterday was #Hamilton's moistest Sep 5th since records began in 1970. #ONWx #YHM #YhmWx pic.twitter.com/G6HWD9Dpyk
— Hamilton Weather Records🌤 (@YHM_Weather) September 6, 2022
Prolonged stretches of warm weather, without respite, are an effect of climate catastrophe. Hamilton has had a relatively dry summer, with 205.6 millimetres of rain from June 1 to Aug. 31.
That includes 72.1 mm in August. Slightly more than half of the August rainfall came on Aug. 21-22 (16.8 and 20.5, respectively).
July saw 56.9 mm of rain. It was also heavily concentrated on two non-consecutive days, with 17.4 mm on July 18 and 22.6 on July 20.
June had 76.6 mm of rain.
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