Hot June Weather

   The days here lately in the Ozarks have been unusually hot for mid-June. Here in Joplin, where I live, for instance, the temperature has reached into the 90s each of the past ten days and the mid-90s each of the past four days. That's considerably hotter than usual, since the average daily high temperature for the entire month of June in Joplin is between 85 and 86 degrees. We're supposed to get a break from the heat within the next couple of days, but, even if we do, this month is likely to be one of the hotter Junes on record.
   I'm not sure, though, whether this year is an aberration or a part of a trend--a reflection of a changing climate--because it seems summer has been coming earlier in recent years than it normally does. If memory serves, it seems we've had several unusually hot Junes in recent years and several unusually cool Augusts. Maybe it's just my imagination, but I don't think I'm entirely off the mark with that observation.
   In either case, the hot weather of late got me to thinking about other hot summers I've experienced in the Ozarks. When I was an elementary school kid growing up in Fair Grove in the early 1950s, the Ozarks had some of the hottest summers on record. The heat we've had in recent days pales in comparison to June of 1953. That year, the temperature in Joplin reached 102 degrees or better for five consecutive days from June 11 through June 15, and the average high for the whole month was over 97 degrees, compared to an average high of 85.6 degrees during a typical year. Of course, I didn't live in Joplin then, but the Springfield area also recorded a very hot June that year, with the thermometer reaching 100 at least a time or two and the daily high for the entire month averaging over 92 degrees, compared to 81 during a typical year.
   June of 1953 was also very dry. In fact, 1953 still stands, I believe, as the driest year on record in Missouri with a statewide average rainfall of 25.5 inches compared to 41 inches in a typical year. In 1953, the Ozarks region (and much of the whole nation) was in the grip of long drought that started in the fall of 1952 and continued until about 1956.
   And then, of course, there was July of 1954, when the mercury topped 100 degrees in about half of the days of the month. It still stands as the hottest month on record in the Ozarks, but I've already written about July 1954 in a blog post a few years ago. So, I'll let it go at that. Suffice it to say that, compared to the early 1950s, maybe the temperatures we've been having lately aren't so bad after all.
   There's no denying, however, that average temperatures worldwide are on the rise. You can argue about how much human activity is contributing to the rise, but the fact that it's getting hotter on average is a matter of record.