Toledo had a high temperature of 102 on July 21, 2011. This was the hottest day since July 1995.
The
atmosphere featured a 500mb ridge stretching between Oklahoma and West Virginia. At 300mb this high pressure axis
was in eastern Tennessee. An area of warm temperatures at 850mb had moved out of the central Midwest during the past
24 hours and
afternoon-evening 850mb temperatures were 23C at Detroit and 22C at southwest Ohio. It also was 14C at 700mb
at Detroit, which is about the warmest I have ever seen for 700mb at Detroit.
On July 19, a strong upper ridge as over Kansas City, MO, and the hot air aloft in the ridge eventually turned
into the record breaking temperatures at Toledo.
During the day it became somewhat windy in Toledo, with a maximum wind speed of 18mph from the west. This is unusually windy
for a fair-weather day in July, and helped contribute to a strongly mixed boundary layer and
higher temperatures. Toledo had a lower dew point at 4:00PM than earlier in the day, even though
it was still quite muggy.
There was a cold front in northern Michigan at mid-day. With the front in the area, winds were over 5mph for much of the night time and
morning hours
The low temperature was 79 at 5:02 AM and the high was 102 at 4:23 PM. At noon, it was 95 with a dew point of 73.
At 4:00PM the temperature was 101 with a relative humidity of 37%, and a heat index of 110.
On July 21, temperatures of 100 or more were reported at Detroit, Central Pennsylvania, Southern New York State, and Newark NJ.
These areas, and possibly New England, were the most above normal for the day. Much of the southern central states had temperatures
in the upper 90's. This region was less above normal than other days in July, when temperatures
soared to 110 in those areas.
Surface map from 21z (5:00PM Eastern)
On July 22, the cold front came through and there were multiple areas of strong thunderstorms in the Toledo area from 12:30PM until
after 5:00PM with some wind damage reported from thunderstorms in Indiana and Ohio.
The purpose is to provide high quality information on historical storms
and provide links to weather information.
