Coolest US Cities in Summer
Cool summer temperatures can be found in major cities of the United States on the west coast and in the northeast.
Among the country's 51 largest cities, San Francisco tops the list for usually having the coldest weather each day in June, July and August. San Francisco's mean summer temperature is barely above 60 degrees Fahrenheit, whereas most major US cities average at least 70 °F (21 °C) during summer.
These rankings of coldest cities use long-term temperature averages, based on weather data collected from 1981 to 2010 for the NOAA's National Climatic Data Center.
The major cities included in the weather rankings represent the 51 metropolitan areas in the United States with the most people, all those with over one million residents in 2010, according to the US Census Bureau.
|City||Daily Summer Mean|
|San Francisco, California||61||16|
|Rochester, New York||69||20|
|Buffalo, New York||69||21|
|San Jose, California||69||21|
|San Diego, California||69||21|
|Providence, Rhode Island||71||22|
Coolest Summer Days
Every major US city, except Buffalo, has set a record high temperature of 100 °F (37.8 °C) or more. Still, 14 of the biggest American cities don't reach temperatures above 80 °F (27 °C) during an average summer day. Making 90 °F (27 °C) is an especially rare event in Seattle, San Diego, San Francisco and Buffalo, where it normally gets that hot on less than three days a year.
|City||Average Daily Maximum|
|San Francisco, California||67||19|
|San Diego, California||74||23|
|Buffalo, New York||78||26|
|Rochester, New York||79||26|
|Providence, Rhode Island||81||27|
|San Jose, California||81||27|
Lowest Summer Temperatures
Nighttime temperatures don't normally drop below 40 degrees in summer at any of America's largest cities. And only rarely during June, July or August does a large US city experience freezing weather.
Temperatures in eleven of the 51 major American urban centers regularly go down below 62 °F (17 °C) during the summer. The cities most likely to have cool nights are Portland, Denver and Rochester, where temperatures of 50 °F (10 °C) or colder happen an average of 10 or 11 times a summer.
|City||Average Daily Minimum|
|San Francisco, California||54||12|
|San Jose, California||58||14|
|Rochester, New York||59||15|
|Buffalo, New York||60||16|
National Climatic Data Center. NOAA's 1981-2010 Climate Normals.