Tampa was part of an exclusive list of cities until Sunday. The Florida city, as well as Anchorage, Alaska; Buffalo, New York; and Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, were the only cities with over 100,000 people in the continental U.S. to have never reached 100 degrees Fahrenheit. Now Tampa is off the list after a scorching Sunday, according to Patrick Hammer, the chief meteorologist for WGRZ in Buffalo.
Sunday’s high in Tampa soared to the century mark. It was the first time ever in 135 years that the city hit 100 degrees.
Local meteorologists marveled at the feat. “We just hit the hottest temperature ever recorded in Tampa — we’ve got records back to the 1890s,” Steven Shiveley of the National Weather Service told the Tampa Bay Times. “This is not our normal heat.”…