The 'lack of extreme heat' argument (climate, hot, averages, Chicago)

[tommyFL]

Why do some people, in order to show that summers in the Southeastern U.S. aren't as severe as say the Midwest or wherever, argue that the Southeast is less prone to extreme heat (100+)? They might say, "Oh man, this is nothing. Chicago gets up to 100 degrees all the time in summer." Even if extreme heat is more common in the northern U.S. (which is, incidentally, something else I'd quite like to talk about), the averages are not to be ignored. I guess it all comes from everyone's preference to cherry pick more impressive extremes than look at the average data.

You hear this all the time down here and it really bugs me.

[chicagogeorge]

Really apples and bowling balls.... No comparison between summers in the Deep South and that of say the Midwest. Yes, at times, we can get extreme heat that the southeast doesn't get, but being further north, it's not very long duration, and usually interrupted with cooler intrusions. While the south is more humid, which is a reason why you don't see the extreme high temps, and has persistently hot if not extreme heat.

We can go several summers in a row without seeing more than just a few days of 90F+ temps, and then a really hot one with several weeks of +90's with incredibly high dew points.

Here is an example of extreme heat from July 1936 in Northeast Illinois (Chicagoland)





I don't know if any location in the Southeast (Virginia, Georgia, Florida, Alabama...) ever had a month that had 19 days above 100F+ with an monthly average max of nearly 101F?


Of course that was the Dust Bowl, and happened 8 decades ago, and we haven't really come close since.

[alex985]

I feel like people do this to rationalize their move to the South when they find out how horrid summers really are, and that they're not any different than a Northern winter.