Dozens of New York Mesonet Sites Break Temperature Records

The sun shines over the New York State Mesonet station at Indian Ladder Farms in Voorheesville. (Photo by Brian Busher)

ALBANY, N.Y. (July 1, 2025) — A severe heat wave felt across the eastern United States last Monday and Tuesday set record high temperatures at more than four dozen New York State Mesonet stations.

A total of 41 NYS Mesonet stations set new temperature records, led by the Bronx site in New York City, which recorded a temperature of 100.6 F on Tuesday at 3:30 p.m. That is a new network high, breaking the previous record of 99.06 F set on Aug. 4, 2022, at the Beacon site in Dutchess County.

The highest heat index (feels like temperature) was 117 F, recorded at the Whitehall station in Washington County at 4:25 p.m. on Monday. This was also a network high, breaking the previous heat index record of 111.3 F set on July 20, 2019, at the Dover Plain site in Dutchess County.

A total of 27 stations across the state recorded temperatures over 95 F on Tuesday. Three sites in New York City (Bronx, Queens and Staten Island) recorded highs above 100 F.

Some of the sites have been collecting data for nearly a decade since the advanced weather-detection network first went online in 2015. It was completed in April 2018.

“It is important to have timely and accurate information around extreme weather events for emergency management and public safety. That is exactly what our Mesonet network was set up to achieve about a decade ago,” said NYS Mesonet Director June Wang. “Its high-quality and multi-variable measurements are updated every five minutes and publicly available through our website to help New Yorkers plan their day effectively.”

Documenting New York’s New Normal

The University at Albany designed, installed and continues to operate the NYS Mesonet. Each of its standard 127 weather stations, spaced an average of about 17 miles apart across the state, measure temperature, humidity, wind speed and direction, pressure, precipitation, solar radiation, snow depth and soil information, and also offer camera images. Data is collected in real-time every five minutes, feeding weather prediction models and decision-support tools for users across New York.

One of the goals of the network is to help New York establish a new, more detailed long-term record of “normal” conditions amid a changing climate, helping meteorologists and emergency managers better understand and prepare for the risks of extreme weather, such as last week’s heat wave.

In addition to the standard network, several sub-networks of specialty sites have been deployed, including a Profiler Network of 17 sites that provide additional data about the atmosphere vertically (up to 6 miles above ground); a Flux Network of 18 stations that monitor surface energy; and a Snow Network of 20 sites measure the water content of snow.

The first NYS Mesonet site — in Schuylerville, Saratoga County — will be celebrating its 10th anniversary in August. The network has been recording real-time weather data across the state since then.