You couldn't prove it by this summer's temperatures, but a website that ranks the nation's cities and metro areas in various categories says Charlotte is among the United States' hot spots.
Quality of Life writer Bert Sperling's list of "Sizzling Cities" has Charlotte ranked 16th among the country's 50 largest metro areas in the category of heat and humidity.
We're hotter than Raleigh and Atlanta, incidentally.
As you might imagine, Phoenix is No. 1.
The survey (available here), released on the Sperling's BestPlaces website, ranks cities according to average high and low temperatures in summer, plus the average dew point and the relative humidity at the warmest time of day.
Humidity, for example, pushes the Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown metro area into fourth place, even though its average high and low temperatures are not as high as some cities ranked lower.
And overnight temperatures were included, Sperling says, because nighttime heat can be especially difficult on those suffering from hot weather.
"Nighttime heat is especially bad, because your body never has a chance to recover," says Eli Jacks, of the National Weather Service.
So here are the hottest large metro areas in the country:
1. Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale
2. Las Vegas-Paradise
3. Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington
4. Houston-Sugar Land-Baytown
5. Austin-Round Rock
6. San Antonio
7. Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach
8. New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner
9. Orlando-Kissimmee
10. Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater
11. Jacksonville, Fla.
12. Oklahoma City
13. Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif.
14. Memphis
15. Birmingham-Hoover
16. Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord
17. Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News
18. Raleigh-Cary
19. Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta
20. Richmond
At the bottom of the 50 metro large areas are San Francisco (48th), Portland (49th) and Seattle (50th).
Sperling also ranked the complete list of 361 metro areas in the country. In that list, Yuma, Ariz., was the hottest place in the country, followed by El Centro, Calif., and then Phoenix.
The coolest were -- surprise! -- Fairbanks and then Anchorage.
Here is where Carolinas metro areas ranked on the overall list:
55. Charleston
75. Florence
77. Columbia
78. Augusta (Ga.)-North Augusta (S.C.)
81. Wilmington
82. Fayetteville
83. Sumter
85. Goldsboro
90. Myrtle Beach
91. Greenville, N.C.
99. Charlotte
100. Rocky Mount
102. Anderson
103. Jacksonville
113. Spartanburg
119. Burlington
123. Greensboro
126. Durham
140. Greenville, S.C.
151. Winston-Salem
234. Asheville
Tuesday, July 16, 2013
Charlotte: 16th-hottest metro area in U.S.
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8 comments:
How can Charlotte be both 16th and 99th on the same list. Apparently whoever made up the list has never been to Columbia in the daylight most of the year.
To Anon 3:35: The first list only accounts for the top 50 largest metro areas in the country, Raleigh and Charlotte are the only cities in the Carolinas that fit that profile......The second list accounts for all cities regardless of population...
Is nobody at the Observer going to fix this sloppy error in reporting?
How now, blue cow? What it be the temperature?
I find it funny that this can be published as "findings" and constitutes news. Is it really surprising to anyone that the warmest US cities are in the desert southwest, followed by the rest of the south?
It isn't news; it's pure trivia. In the winter these folks will release a major study that tells us the coldest metro areas are in the north and upper mid-west.
We are supposed to react in a shocked manner, and thank these folks for their efforts in providing us information we would have otherwise never suspected.
But, when we moved to Charlotte from Buffalo, we expected summer highs to be in the upper 60's, like back home.
Where's Raleigh or Raleigh/Durham on the second list?
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