A hot day on Boston Common. Photo (cc) 2013 via City of Boston archives.
There’s a lot of talk this week to the effect that the heat wave we’re experiencing is unprecedented — or at least unusual — for June. True enough. But I vividly remember a wild stretch of hot weather that hit the Northeast in April 2002. I was in New Jersey and New Haven to interview folks for my first book, “Little People,” and it was over 90 degrees for a day or two that week.
As I was driving through Connecticut, an anchor on NPR said that a new record of more than 90 degrees had been set in Central Park. That night, I met with Anthony Soares, a person with dwarfism who was president of the city council in Hoboken, New Jersey. We sat outside at a restaurant until 11 p.m. in stifling heat and humidity. Here’s how The New York Times put it on April 17, 2002:
After a stubbornly mild winter, a sudden heat wave settled over the New York region yesterday, with the temperature reaching 92 degrees in Central Park at 3:30 p.m. That shattered the previous high for the day of 88, which was reached in 1896.
Elsewhere in the region, records were similarly trounced. In Newark, a high of 90 beat the old record of 82, reached in 1976. And in Bridgeport, it was a full 10 degrees hotter (83 degrees) than on any previous April 16.
In Boston, the temperature on April 17 topped out at 93.2 degrees. Notably, the Boston Marathon had been held just two days earlier, although, fortunately, it didn’t make it out of the 50s that day. And on April 18, it was back in the 50s again.
Climate change is making all of this worse. It was a factor 22 years ago, and it’s even more of one now. I just thought you’d like a reminder that what we’re going through this week is nothing new, and that we’ve had even stranger weather off and on in the past.