It has finally cooled down in Austin (it only got up to about 88F today), so it is probably safe to talk about the brutally hot summer that is now behind us. It was the hottest summer on record (using the Camp Mabry records, since 1897), and on September 29, we had our 90th day at or above 100F. Wow. For fun, I looked up some other statistics about the Austin summers:

Average number of 100 degree days each year in Austin: 12.3
Greatest number of 100 degree days in one year (before this year): 69 (1925). In 2009 we had 68.
Average date of the first 100 degree day: July 11th
Average date of the last 100 degree day: August 20th
Earliest 100 degree day: May 4th (1984)
Latest 100 degree day: October 2nd (1938)
Years without a 100 degree day: 10 (1987, 1979, 1975, 1973, 1968, 1919, 1908, 1907, 1906, 1904)
Highest temperature of record was 112 on September 5, 2000 and August 28, 2011

Of course, our big fear is that this year is the new normal. A scary thought.