It’s hot, but is it summer of 1936 hot? Here’s a look at the hottest days in KY’s history
Lexington locals have had their share of punishing temperatures lately, and the state as a whole is projected to see above-normal temperatures between July and September.
That said, the forecast temperature high of 97 degrees in Lexington Wednesday pales in comparison to what’s arguably the hottest day on record in the Bluegrass State: July 28, 1930.
That oppressively hot day brought the hottest temperature ever recorded in Kentucky – 114 degrees in Greensburg. That’s according to Tom Reaugh, the lead forecaster at the National Weather Service in Louisville.
Still, Reaugh said, the question “What was Kentucky’s hottest day?” is difficult to answer definitively.
“It’s possible that July 28, 1930 is at least one of the hottest days the state has seen,” he said.
The NWS in Louisville has compiled, and recently updated as of June 21, a list of the top 10 heat events that have occurred in central Kentucky and southern Indiana.
While many drought and heat wave events have occurred across its county warning area, the NWS in Louisville said its list represents the most memorable.
“As is often the case with meteorological extremes, it is difficult to confine over a hundred years of climatology into a list of just 10 events,” the NWS in Louisville said to preface its list. It weighed factors like temperature, length of the heat wave and the level of drought it caused.
“It should also be noted that for those who are left to pick through the devastation of destroyed crops or even the loss of life due to the heat wave, that event will forever be the most significant,” the NWS in Louisville said.
Top 10 recorded heat events in Kentucky
The summer of 1936
July 28, 1930, Kentucky’s “arguably” hottest day
The heat wave of 1901
August 2007
Extreme drought in 1954
1921, Kentucky’s hottest year
January to August of 2012
The 1991 heat wave and drought
The water crisis and drought of 1983
The autumn heat and flash drought of 2019
Here’s a look at the top three events from the above list in detail.
1. The summer of 1936
According to the NWS in Louisville, the summer of 1936 is “legendary” for its searing heat and extreme lack of rainfall.
The first half of the year was unusually dry, but the true drought set in during the month of June.
Bowling Green got only 0.12 of an inch of rain. Louisville got just 0.35 and Lexington stood at 1.18 inches of rain – 1.06 of which fell on a single day. It’s still the second driest June on record for Lexington, according to the NWS list.
But that was just the beginning. The last few days of June saw afternoon temperatures spike to around 100 degrees, and between July 8 and July 15, every major NWS reporting station in Kentucky was reporting 100-degree temperatures.
Louisville peaked at 107 on July 14, 1936, still their all-time high according to the NWS office there. Bowling Green hit 106 July 10 and 11 of that year. Temperatures in Lexington exploded to 108 degrees July 10 and 15, the all-time high here.
Many Kentuckians had to endure those temperatures without modern air conditioning. The technology had been invented by 1902, but it wasn’t common in residential homes until at least the 50s.
The heat wave continued for the rest of July that year, though not quite at record levels.
In August, another blast of heat swept through the region from the 16 to the 28.
Bowling Green recorded another string of 10 days topping 100 degree days, peaking at 106 on the 28th. Louisville topped out at 101 Aug. 19 and 22, and Lexington made it to 105 on the 19th (their all-time high for August), according to the NWS in Louisville.
The summer of 1936 turned out to be the second hottest summer ever recorded in Louisville, and the hottest on record for Lexington and Bowling Green.
It was also the second driest at Lexington, third driest at Louisville and eighth driest at Bowling Green.
2. Kentucky’s hottest day?
Sure, the summer of 1936 had staying power in terms of heat and drought, but arguably the hottest single day in Kentucky history happened several years earlier: July 28, 1930.
Just about everyone in the state saw thermometer readings above 100 degrees. The hottest was recorded in Greensburg at 114 degrees. (The red values on the map displayed above indicate all-time high temperature records set that day.)
3. The heat wave of 1901
In July 1901, a deadly heat wave swept across much of the eastern U.S. – ultimately killing more than 9,500 people nationwide. As many as 724 of them were in New York City alone.
In Kentucky, Lexington fared much better than other cities across the state. It recorded only two 100-degree days and a little more than 2.5 inches of rain.
Not far, in Louisville, residents there got 27 days where temperatures topped 90 degrees and eight days when they spiked above 100 degrees. Seven of them occurred consecutively, peaking at 107 degrees July 24, 1901.
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