How did this summer stack up against Fresno’s hottest? Here’s what we found out

Fresno summers are notorious.

It’s a dry heat, is what they used to say, and months of it.

These are sweltering, sun-filled days (dozens on average) at triple digits, with just enough cooling to make the evenings bearable (if not enjoyable) once the sun goes down.

It’s to the point where anything that’s an anomaly is seen as possibly the best summer ever.

Which brings up this year.

The past few months certainly felt different, especially with last summer radiating in our collective memories. But what does the data say about summer 2025?

Best Fresno summer ever?

“Fundamentally, its been different this year,” says Stephen McCoy, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Hanford.

He’s not talking about temperatures, specifically.

Those were well within the historical average. The daily average temperature for Fresno (which combines highs and lows) was 82 degrees from June 1 to Aug. 31, the weather service’s summer period.

“Relatively speaking, it’s a bit cooler than we’re used to,” McCoy says.

“It’s also not really abnormal.”

That is, unless, you’re comparing this year to last.

Last summer, Fresno’s average temperature was 85.4 degrees, which included a scorcher of a July. It was the hottest July on record — nearly a full month of triple-digit temperatures, with 19 days reported above 105.

“Last year, we were setting records highs,” McCoy says.

“That stretch in July, it was like every other day.”

Fresno didn’t get those record-setting heat waves this year.

In fact, there were just six 100-plus degrees days reported in Fresno in June. Another six were reported in July and 15 were reported in August.

But there were zero new record highs in Fresno this summer and actually a few record lows.

“It was lot more consistent this year,” McCoy says.

Fewer high pressure systems

The major difference, and the one that might have people feeling like this was a particularly mild summer, was a lack of high-pressure systems moving through the area, McCoy says.

These are the weather systems we typically see in the central San Joaquin Valley during the summer months. Given the geography, they cause those prolonged periods of oppressive, stagnated heat that people tend to associate with summers in Fresno.

It’s the “two or three weeks of high pressure sitting over us and not moving,” McCoy says.

“This year we haven’t many of those high pressure systems sitting over us.”

Instead, we have had multiple low pressure systems, he says, on the back side of which come winds from the northeast and pacific northwest along with thunderstorms and showers in from the south; which is what the city has seen over the past few days.

Does a milder summer make for a hotter fall?

The pessimists out there will worry the warmer summer weather, mild as it was, will just continue in the fall.

And that’s not without some merit. A recent report from the nonprofit Climate Central found that summer temperatures in Fresno linger an average of eight days longer then they did in the early 1970s, when comparing like data.

And that could happen this year, McCoy says.

Fresno is currently transitioning into a La Nina weather pattern, McCoy says, and that tends toward hotter and drier. “But, it doesn’t meant we’re going to get that,” he says.

“Our area doesn’t correlate as highly.”

The winter of 2022 was a La Nina year and it bucked the trend with a series of storms that dumped rain and snow and led to the deepest snowpack recorded in the Sierra Nevada.

“It depends on the type of patterns that we get.”

This story was originally published September 19, 2025 at 3:15 PM.