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Miami hasn’t had an official 100-degree high temperature since 1942. Tampa has hit 99 in two summers but never 100 in 134 years of official weather records.
File those surprising weather facts alongside how most locations in our Southwest and Southside Virginia coverage area get more annual average rainfall than Seattle.
The lack of triple-digit temperatures in coastal Florida reflects how it actually takes more solar radiation to warm humid air than it does to warm dry air, like we see in Las Vegas or Phoenix. This can be confusing because extra moisture in the air can make it feel hotter than it is, as bodily sweat less easily evaporates, and that’s where we derive the heat index.