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Show Summer of '88 hottest in 115 years of record keeping How hot was the summer of 1988? According to the National Weather Service statistics, this summer has been the second driest and the hottest summer in 1 15 years of weather-keeping. During the summer months of June, My and August, the mean (average) temperature was 77.7 degrees, de-grees, four degrees above the average aver-age 73.7 degrees for the three-month three-month period. The mean temperature tempera-ture is obtained by combining the day's high temperature with the low daily temperature and dividing the two temperatures, it was explained. ex-plained. There were six days two in June and four in July that the mercury rose above 100 degrees at the weather recording station at Salt Lake International Airport. These high temperatures, along with several readings above 95 de-gr de-gr and warmer than usual niime temperatures the mean temperature for the summer was 0.2 degrees above the previous hottest summer of 77.5 degrees in 1961. The next highest summer recording re-cording in modern-day history was a "mild" 77.2 degrees, according to the NWS records. The average temperatures for the past three months were June, 75.7 degrees; July 80.9 degrees; and August, 76.5 degrees. During that period, there were 40 days when the mercury rose to 95 degrees or above with a high of 101 degrees in July. In August, there were five days when the tempera ture hit 96 degrees, but not once did it reach the century mark. The Jfive days in August when the mercury rose to 96 degrees or above were on the 10th, 14th, 18th, ' 24th and 25th. The all-time high for August was Aug. 4, 1979, when the temperature skyrocketed to 104 degrees. During August, the mean temperature tem-perature was 76.5 degrees, 1.6 degrees de-grees above normal for the 30-years 30-years of record keeping. The all-time all-time low temperature for August was 37 degrees on Aug. 31, 1965. It's also been a record-setting summer for precipitation or the lack thereof with the monthly total reaching only .22-inch, 23 percent per-cent of normal. With only the month of September Septem-ber left in the current (1988-89) water-year, the precipitation total is a mere 9.87 inches, which is only 68 percent of the water-year total of 14.42 inches. It also marks the seventh driest 11 -month period at the Salt Lake International Airport. Air-port. The driest, 11 -month period on record was back in 1933-34 when only 7.76 inches fell. June, July and August are traditionally tradi-tionally dry months, but this year only .29-inch of precipitation was recorded just 1 1 percent of the normal 2.61 inches, and the second driest three-month period on record. re-cord. And one more for the record book the highest minimum (night-time) record for August was 72 degrees, matching the previous minimum high set in 1982. |