Tagged: heat

Regional news coverage from the KBIA newsroom, including:

• Rep. Hartzler opens office in Columbia, talks spending cuts and Hagel
• New Mo. GOP chair plans more aggressive approach
• 2012 was record warm year in much of Missouri

If you're a Missourian and felt hot under the collar last year, there is good reason.

The National Weather Service says 2012 was the warmest year on record in St. Louis and Columbia, and was among the warmest in other cities.

St. Louis recorded an average temperature of 61.2 degrees for last year, a full 1.1 degrees higher than the previous mark set in 1921.

In Columbia, the average temperature of 59.4 degrees topped the 1938 record.

Wednesday will be the eighth time -- since the school year began less than a month ago -- that some students at Columbia public schools are dismissed early because of the heat.

Jefferson and West Junior High schools don’t have air conditioning. Five Columbia elementary schools had units installed during the summer. But, Michelle Baumstark, spokesperson for Columbia Public Schools, says it may take more than a year to complete the remaining two schools.

According to a new study, the Midwest is getting hotter. With this summer's record-breaking temperatures, that probably doesn't sound like news.

But a new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists shows our hot weather isn't an anomaly - things have been heating up across the Midwest for the past six decades.

The study found that on average, some Midwestern cities like St. Louis now have twice the number of very hot, humid, summer days as it did in the 1940s. Nighttime temperatures are also on the rise, and heat waves of three or more days are becoming more common.