Summer 2026 Climate Summary

Summer 2026 Climate Summary:

Temperatures averaged near to slightly above normal. High temperatures averaged near to slightly below normal but lows were a bit above normal. A big reason for this was our higher than normal humidity levels. Paducah registered 31 hours with a dew point of at least 80 degrees, which broke the previous summer record of 25 hours set back in 1989. Meanwhile, we observed 423 hours with a dew point of at least 75 which was the 3rd most on record. June was the coolest month compared to normal, finishing slightly below normal. July finished near to slightly above normal and August was fairly similar regarding departures. Paducah experienced an unusually low number of 90 degree days, only reaching that threshold 28 times. This was the fewest in a summer season since 2013 and well below the seasonal normal which is around 42 days. Of course thanks to the higher humidity, when we did manage to hit 90 this year, we experienced an usually high number of days with very high heat index readings. We observed 18 days with a heat index reaching at least 105 degrees (most in a summer since 2010). So 64% of our 90 degree days manage to hit a 105 heat index, which is well above our normal of about 15% during the summer.

Precipitation averaged well above normal across much of our region and several locations observed one of their wettest summers on record. Cape Girardeau received nearly 22” which ranks as their wettest summer in their 66 year period of record. Meanwhile, Paducah registered our 2nd wettest summer on record, barely falling shy of the record by 0.05”. Much of our region experienced amounts of 14-22”, which was 4 to 12” wetter than normal. There were localized swaths of 25-30”. The highest observed total in our forecast area was 30.99” at a CoCoRaHS site near Mound City, IL in Pulaski County. This came close to breaking the wettest summer rainfall at any location in our 58 county forecast area which is 32.44” in Murray, KY set back in 2016. Needless to say there was quite a bit of flash flooding with several very heavy rainfall events impacting our region over the course of the summer. While most of our region observed a very wet summer, there were some areas that finished near or even drier than normal. This included parts of the Ozark Foothills (Carter and Ripley Counties) and northern portions of southern Illinois (Jefferson and Franklin Counties in particular). Some of these areas barely received 8-9” for the summer, which was 1 to 4” drier than normal.

It was a very active summer severe weather season. Our office issued a combined total of 345 warnings (Severe Thunderstorm, Tornado, and Flash Flood) which was the 2nd most on record for a summer season (record is 390 set in 2023) and well above our summer average of 130-135 warnings. There were 13 days in which we issued at least 10 warnings and 36 days with at least 1 warning. Some of the higher end events occurred June 21, June 27, July 9-10, and August 19-20. We set monthly records for number of tornado warnings in June (45) and August (10) along with setting the June record for most flash flood warnings (45). We issued more tornado warnings this August (10) than the previous 13 years combined (9)! For the summer season we issued 59 tornado warnings, which shattered the previous summer record of 32 set back in 1998. There were 23 observed tornadoes in our forecast area this summer, which also shattered the previous summer record of 13 set back in 2019.