It was the District’s hottest day of the year Friday. Forecasts point to hotter days to come. But for now, Friday’s 95-degree high is the undisputed thermal champion.
Washington, D.C
Friday brings the hottest day of the year in D.C. For now.
However, it did seem in a way fitting on that on the first full day after the solstice, the start of astronomical summer, the nation’s capital should welcome the year’s hottest day.
Scholars of weather and everyday residents of Washington might wish to parse the finer points of Friday’s conditions. But the day, and the blaze of its June sunshine, seemed unarguably appropriate to summer.
It could have been considered a kind of atmospheric calling card, a sign that nature had not forgotten us through the weeks of idyllic spring. Friday, with its 95, indicated that nature remained in the summertime heat business, and had not closed up shop.
But efforts to find some summer comfort amid the simmer were rewarded by relatively small victories. In Washington, the air stirred often, offering enough natural ventilation to carry off some of the perspiration produced by the heat.
The heat index climbed well above the temperature, meaning that humidity caused Friday to feel even warmer than it was. But in its hourly reports of conditions in Washington, the National Weather Services never recorded a heat index as high as 100.
Just before 4 p.m., with the official temperature at the day’s high of 95, the heat index was even higher, to be sure. But it stopped short of triple digits, topping out at 99.
And at that time, as at other hours in the afternoon, a ripple of breeze passed over the landscape, offering a bit of relief.
Perhaps the 15 mph breeze, reported simultaneously with the city’s highest temperature, offered a reminder that even 95 degree days are not beyond the power of natural mitigation.
In the catalogue of unpleasant characteristics of the District’s summertime, the “H’s” occupy a prominent section. Under “H” can be found haze, heat and humidity.
Friday, the year’s hottest day, was certainly warm enough to meet the hot requirement.
But humidity seemed at least near the bounds of tolerability.
And the sky often seemed piercing in the clarity of its blue. So water-vapory haze seemed frequently absent.
Nonetheless, with Friday, Washington’s string of 90-degree days reached five. The city has clearly fallen into the clutches of a heat wave.
It began before the solstice and continued afterward. And Friday, its latest member, edged out Tuesday’s 94, and reigned, at least for a day, as the D.C. heat champion of 2024.