About Today's Record High
A climate reference tool built out of curiosity about heat.
What is this?
Today's Record High lets you look up the all-time record high temperature ever recorded on today's date at hundreds of U.S. weather stations — plus the record low, the 1991–2020 climate normal, and how this year is tracking compared to history.
Each station page goes deeper: how hot has it been this year compared to normal? Are summer nights getting warmer over time? Is rainfall up or down? The goal is to put today's weather in context — not just "it's hot" but "how does this compare to every other June 24th on record?"
Why does it exist?
During heat waves, news coverage often says a city "broke a record" without telling you what the record actually was, how close today came to it, or whether this is part of a longer pattern. This site tries to answer all of those questions in one place.
It's also just interesting. Weather records are a surprisingly rich dataset — every station has decades of daily observations that tell a story about how a place's climate has shifted over time.
Where does the data come from?
All historical temperature and precipitation data comes from RCC ACIS (Regional Climate Centers Applied Climate Information System), which distributes NOAA's Threadex dataset — a quality-controlled archive of daily observations going back over 100 years at major stations.
Climate normals (the "expected" values) are the 1991–2020 NOAA normals, recalculated every decade to reflect recent climate. Current conditions are pulled from Open-Meteo, a free and open weather API.
How do I use it?
- The home page shows today's record high for a set of major U.S. cities alongside current conditions, so you can see at a glance how close any city is to its record.
- Click any city — or browse all stations — to see the full detail page with record tables, departure-from-normal charts, precipitation history, and warm nights trends.
- The map on the home page lets you pan around and find any station near you.