Salt Lakers can brag about having sweated through the hottest summer on record.

The summer of '94 tied or broke all sorts of records - 21 days of 100 degrees or higher temperatures, 48 days of 95 degrees or higher and 71 days of 90 degrees or higher. Summer officially ends Sept. 23.On Aug. 16, when the mercury soared to 100 degrees again, Salt Lakers learned that the summer of 1994 could lay claim with the summer of 1960 to the most days with temperatures of 100 degrees or higher.

And that wasn't all August brought.

A 106.1-degree reading, a record high for any August, was reached Aug. 4 at the Salt Lake International Airport. That reading came within 0.5 degrees of the all-time record-high temperature of 106.6 on July 26, 1960. The weather service rounded that temperature to 107 degrees.

The past month was also the hottest August on record at the airport weather station. The average temperature was 80.8 degrees. That was 5.2 degrees above normal and 2.2 degrees above the previous hottest August (an average of 78.6 degrees) in 1967.

"Eclipsing a record by this much is like experiencing an 8.0-magnitude earthquake on the Wasatch Fault," said William J. Alder, meteorologist in charge of the Salt Lake office of the National Weather Service.

Daytime temperatures were not only blazing, but readings during evening and early morning hours were hot and often humid, causing sleepless nights for many people.

The average minimum (early morning) temperatures during August were a record warm 66.2 degrees. The old record was 66.1 degrees, set during August 1983.

Of course, Salt Lakers haven'tneeded to wait for the official readings to know it's been a summer for the record books.

A "sizzler" is how R. Brent Milne, Murray, an owner of a roofing company, describes the summer of '94. He spent many days during the hottest-on-record summer working on roofs, where the temperature is five to 10 degrees higher.

At Utah Auto Club, Geoff Rice, director of field operations, says his organization had a 25 percent increase in service calls in June through August.

Common heat-related problems have been engine vapor lock and tire blowouts, Rice says.

Pearl Rich, 82, another Salt Lake-area resident, says the summer of 1994 has been "plenty hot" for her. But she remembers perhaps even warmer summers as as a young girl on a Hinckley, Millard County, farm.

"I think it was hotter there because we had no rain. It was very dry. I have coped with the heat this summer pretty well because I have stayed in (our air-conditioned) house during the day," she said.

Air conditioning in the schools would be a welcome relief for the bulk of Salt Lake area-students and teachers, who went back to school in August to buildings without air conditioning.

Anne Camomile, a fifth-grade teacher at Salt Lake District's Highland Park Elementary School, said students have been "miserable from the heat but are hanging in there. I allow the kids to bring water bottles to school. They fill them up frequently with water and drink all day."

Despite the heat, Salt Lake County resident Elaine Boyce much prefers summer to winter.

"You don't have to shovel sunshine," Boyce said, smiling.

"Summers are nice, but this last one was awfully hot. What we need is a lot of sprinkles (of rain) with the hot weather," her husband, Bob, said.

Ironically, this year's hottest-on-record June, July and August came on the "heels of the coolest summer (1993) on record," Alder said. "The average temperature this year was 78.6 degrees. The normal is 74.2. Temperatures were 4.4 degrees above normal."

During the summer of 1993, the average temperature was 68.7 degrees. The hottest day was 96 degrees on July 28. The previous hottest summer was 1988, when the average temperature was 77.7 degrees. Temperatures this summer were nearly a degree warmer than that summer.

Not everyone has been too bothered by the heat, however.

East Mill Creek resident Bob Wertz thinks about the much-hotter areas when the Salt Lake temperature hovers around 100 degrees.

"If people think it is hot here, they ought to move to St. George, Phoenix, Las Vegas or Palm Springs. Temperatures here don't compare," Wertz said.

A retired Air Force officer, Wertz remembers a lot of nights while he was living near Chandler, Ariz., when the temperature was 100 degrees at midnight.

It has been hot in St. George. High temperatures there have averaged 105.5 degrees this summer, according to Donald T. Jensen, state climatologist at the Utah Climate Center at Utah State University.

St. George's highest temperature was 114 degrees on two days, June 29 and 30. Those readings fell short of the all-time record of 117 degrees set July 5, 1985.

St. George recorded 82 days of 100 degrees or higher this summer.

Jensen says this summer was the "hottest (overall) in 100 years in St. George."

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Additional Information

The Summer of '94 Salt Lake City

Records

Days with a high temperature:

Over 100 degrees 21

Over 95 degrees 48

Over 90 degrees 71

High temperature

1994 Aug, 4 106.1 degrees

1960 July 26 (Record) 106.6 degrees

Average Temperatures for June, July and August

See graph on microfilm

August records

Aug 3 102 degrees MAX T

Aug 4 106 degrees MAX R

Aug 5 74 degrees MIN R

Aug 5 105 degrees MAX R

Aug 6 100 degrees MAX T

Aug 7 100 degrees MAX R

Aug 16 100 degrees MAX R

Aug 24 99 degrees MAX T

MAX= maximum high

View Comments

MIN= minimu;m high

T= TIE

R= record

St George Record High 114 degrees June 29-30

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