New York Breaks Record High Temperature Thursday Afternoon
New York Ties Record High Temperature; Now Be Ready for a Repeat
(Bloomberg) -- New York’s Central Park tied a heat record Wednesday and broke one Thursday, according to the National Weather Service.
The temperature in the Manhattan park reached 92 degrees Fahrenheit (33.3 Celsius) just before 3 p.m. breaking an old mark set in 2001. Wednesday the readings reached 90, tying a record from the same year. The string of records will probably end Friday, as highs are only supposed to reach 88, not quite the 92 also recorded in 2001.
Ninety-degree days in Central Park aren’t common in May. Since 1870, there’s been an average of just one per year. Last year, temperatures hit 90 or more three times, with the most in 1939 and 1991, with five times each. The highest temperature recorded was 99 on May 19, 1962, the weather service said.
One possible reason for the Central Park ramp-up: Cold weather in April that hindered vegetation growth. Heat from the sun can be offset by “cooling water vapor” produced by plants and leafy trees on sunny days, said Todd Crawford, chief meteorologist for The Weather Company, in Andover, Massachusetts.
To contact the reporter on this story: Brian K. Sullivan in Boston at bsullivan10@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Lynn Doan at ldoan6@bloomberg.net, Will Wade, Joe Richter
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