Toledo bakes at record-setting 97 degrees

Dink Wyatt, left, and C.J. Chilupe take a water break during football practice at Maumee High School.

The hottest day of the year in Toledo, and many nearby places, waited nearly until summer’s end to arrive.

The 97-degree high at Toledo Express Airport, measured at 3:46 p.m., beat the 95-degree record for the date set 30 years prior and also was, by three degrees, the warmest reading so far this year at Toledo’s official weather-reporting station. The season’s previous high at Toledo was 94, on July 18 and 19.

The National Weather Service also reported record highs at Cleveland (96 degrees) and Mansfield (95 degrees) and a tie at Akron-Canton (93).

Other high temperatures reported in the region, but at locations for which the weather service does not keep official climate records, included 97 at Toledo Executive Airport, the former Metcalf Field in Lake Township, and at The Blade building downtown; 99 at Lima, 98 at Defiance, 96 at Findlay, and 95 at Adrian.

The late-summer heat arrived with a mass of tropical air that pushed into northwest Ohio on Monday and spread across the eastern Great Lakes overnight. Another 90-plus day was forecast for today, but after that, the heat is expected to break with the passage of a cold front overnight, accompanied by showers and thunderstorms late today and early Thursday.

Until then, however, forecasters expect hot and muggy weather to persist. Today’s morning low was expected to be in the low 70s, just a few degrees cooler than Toledo’s normal 78-degree high for Sept. 11. The normal low today is 55 degrees.