Historic Heat as Hotpocalypse Grips The State

Not hot enough to fry an egg!

We all lived through history today as Little Rock soared to an incredible and record smashing 114 degrees.  This broke the old record of 112 degrees set back in 1986.  It's funny.  I have such a good memory of weather events all the way back to the early 1980's, but I have absolutely no memory of the 112 degrees on July 31st, 1986.  The chance of us ever experiencing a hot day like this again in Little Rock is extremely small.  One thought does come to my mind.  Remember our brave men and women who are in the middle east and deal with heat worse than this for not one day, but for several weeks during the year!

We also broke the record for warmest low temperature.  That was set Wednesday morning at 85 degrees.  If the temperature doesn't drop below 83 before midnight, this record will stand.  It's amazing to break an all time record high and record warm low during the same day!

I know many of you were following me on twitter and facebook today as I gave you real time information on the changing temperature as we soared to that incredible 114 degrees at 2:31 PM.  I really need to thank the National Weather Service in North Little Rock and meteorologist John Robinson.  They knew the historic nature of the day and were on top of it!

So what about the forecast?  It's going to stay hot and above 100 degrees for at least the next 3 days, but I think the temperature will range from 100 to 107 degrees.  Still very hot, but not the 114 we dealt with Wednesday.  The ridge may move to the western United States next week which would bring cooler temperatures to the state.  When I say cooler, I'm talking about mid and upper 90s. 

Fort Smith also broke an all time record as they hit 115 degrees.  As I write this blog post, I do not know of any temperature higher than that.  Some of the smaller reporting sites will send their readings to the National Weather Service office tonight or tomorrow morning.   It will be interesting to see if the state record of 120 degrees set on August 10th, 1936, was matched or broken.  I'll keep you updated.

Here are more daily records from around the state.

• North Little Rock ties an all time record high of 111 degrees.
• Pine Bluff sets a daily high record with 109 degrees.  The old one was in 1918.
• Harrison hits 110 breaking the old record set in 1934
• Hot Springs hits 106 tying a 2008 record

If the summer of 2011 ended today in Little Rock, it would be...

• The hottest ever by average seasonal temperature
• The 2nd hottest by average low temperature
• The 3rd hottest by average high temperature