Weather Words: Record High

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With more and more record high temperatures being recorded more, it’s important to know what they mean and their significance. When we say “record high” that means it’s the highest temperature ever recorded. It’s important to know that it’s not the highest temperature ever, because we have only been keeping temperature records for the last 100-150 years. There’s a chance the temperature reached that temperature or higher before records were kept, so “record high” is the highest temperature recorded since records have been kept.

There are two types of record high temperatures:

• Record high - This one is the most familiar. This is recorded during the hottest time of the day, when the daytime heat reaches its maximum.
• Record high minimum - This is a record for the warmest starting temperature of the day. The warmest low temperature on record for that day.

It may surprise you that we are actually setting records for warmer morning lows faster than afternoon records. This is in large part because climate change is causing our nights to be warming faster than our days.

J​ennifer Gray is a weather and climate writer for weather.com. She has been covering some of the world's biggest weather and climate stories for the last two decades.