To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.

GREENSBORO — Summer temperatures are breaking records with July being the warmest month ever recorded in the United States.

New reports released from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration show July breaks the record last set in 1936. While warm weather is great for a day at the beach, it can be dangerous in urban areas where high temperatures can hit the hardest.

Climatologist Ryan Boyles, says temperatures are usually higher in more populated cities.

"Urban heat islands that develop. Our urban areas are getting warmer than they use to be as we continue to build out the asphalt in the infrastructures," said Boyles.

Sandy Ellington of the Guilford County Department of Public Health said people need to be cautious of becoming dehydrated.

"You could move into heat exhaustion and heat stroke and people don't realize that heat-related injuries are a medical emergency, particularly heat stroke," said Ellington.
 
Boyles said there's an upside to this year's scorching temps. It is better than the extreme weather we saw in 2011.

“We had a very cold winter. We had a major tornado outbreak, a land falling hurricane. We had drought, we had just about every kind of severe weather you could think of in 2011. So relatively speaking, 2012 has been a much quieter year so far," said Boyles.
 
NASA published a report this month loosely connecting the recent, higher temperatures to global warming saying the temperature trends seen recently were uncommon 30 years ago.
 
The average temperature for July across the country was 77.6 degrees Fahrenheit.