Friday could not be blamed for its searing heat and steamy humidity. After all, it is summertime, it is the District, and this is the hottest month of our hottest season.
Washington, D.C
Friday, the week’s hottest day in D.C., was humid, too
Even at only 98 degrees, however, Friday was the hottest day here since June 26, when it was 99. It was also 9 degrees hotter than the average high — 89 degrees — for July 5 in the capital.
It is true that the actual temperature did fall a bit short of three digits, a level that generally wins instant acceptance as thermally severe. But the feels-like temperature, also an important characteristic of conditions, cleared that hurdle with ease.
For a couple of hours Friday afternoon, the heat index reached 108 degrees. It stood at 108 degrees just before 3 p.m. and just before 5 p.m. And when it was not 108 at two other afternoon hours, it fell only a degree below that at 107.
Memories of attending the fireworks in Washington on the Fourth of July, often include recollections of the weather. The Fourth on the Washington Monument grounds has often been a day that is celebrated amid substantial swelter.
But the Fifth, which was Friday, surpassed it in discomfort to become the sultriest day of the week and month thus far.
The high temperature on the Fourth was only 94, warm, certainly, but perhaps not the sort of heat that residents or tourists will incorporate in their tales of enduring the severity of Washington weather.
And the heat index apparently did not reach the three-digit mark Thursday, according to available National Weather Service data.
So if the Fourth was the day to inspire, perhaps Friday was the time to perspire.
But, it is difficult to conceive of conditions that differ greatly from those of Friday.
It is summer and this is Washington, and we are surrounded, immersed and enveloped in the time and the place — for hotter, or for perhaps slightly less hot.