What is the highest January temperature on record in the contiguous 48 states?
The highest January temperature for the USA that I could find in materials from the National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) was 98 degrees Fahrenheit at Palm Springs, Calif. The date isn’t given. It’s always possible that some location without official records could have hit a higher temperature. Death Valley, Calif., which holds the all-time USA high temperature record of 134 degrees (in July) has reached only 87 in January. Some other January hot spots – in terms of highest ever readings, not averages – are Long Beach, Calif., and Hilo, Hawaii, both with 91. Even though it’s in the tropics, Hawaii is cooled by sea breezes and never gets as hot as the Southwest deserts. In Hilo, for example, the hottest in any month is 94 in May. Our weather records and averages page has links to NCDC and other Web pages with this kind of information.
