Where are DC's 90-degree days?

 

Early June has also gotten off to a cooler than average start in the nation’s capital following an unusually cool second half of May. No 90-degree heat has occurred yet this year in Washington, D.C. and that’s growing more unusual by the day.

The nation’s capital typically sees its first 90-degree heat of the year in mid-May. However, Washingtonians haven’t experienced any 90-degree May heat three times over the last decade (2016, 2020 and 2023). While 2023 featured a cooler than average summer in the nation’s capital, the summers of 2016 and 2020 finished as DC’s fourth and sixth warmest, respectively. That helps illustrate that while the lack of 90-degree days in May doesn’t always indicate how warm the summer may be, it can offer some clues.

Residents of the DMV (DC, Maryland and Virginia) have experienced cooler than average weather to start June. That will change as a warmup is underway this week with DC’s first 90-degree heat of 2025 likely on June 12 and June 13. That would be DC’s latest first occurrence since 2003 (June 24).

Longtime Washingtonians might remember that 2003 was an exceptionally cool year. However, unlike 2003, NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center is expecting the DMV to see a warmer than average summer in 2025. NOAA’s also expecting this summer to be wetter than average.

While unusual, the nation’s capital not seeing its first day of 90-degree heat until some point in June isn’t record-setting. DC’s record for latest first 90-degree day of the year is July 12, 1979, in what finished as a cooler than average summer. Fans of warm summer weather should, however, be enthusiastic for NOAA’s summer forecast for warmer than average temperatures in the nation’s capital.