Tuesday, June 24, 2025, Central Park hit 99°F (37.2°C), marking the hottest day in New York City since July 2012. The reading was taken at 1:27 p.m. at Belvedere Castle, the city’s official weather station. A dry air mass drifting in from the west helped push temperatures well beyond typical seasonal levels.
Bryan Ramsey, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in New York, had projected the possibility of the thermometer reaching 102°F (38.9°C). Still, the all-time high in Central Park remains 106°F (41.1°C), set on July 9, 1936.
Thanks to its lush vegetation, Central Park usually stays cooler than the surrounding urban landscape. But on Tuesday, the shift in wind direction brought drier and hotter air, replacing the usual humid flow from the Atlantic Ocean. The result was a blistering afternoon that felt hotter than the numbers alone suggested, especially in areas north and west of the city, where the heat surged even further.
Several other nearby locations shattered temperature records.
At Newark Liberty International Airport, the mercury climbed to 103°F (39.4°C), beating the previous record for the date—97°F (36.1°C), set in 1966—and matching the all-time June record set in 2021.
LaGuardia Airport hit 100°F (37.8°C), topping the June 24 record of 96°F (35.6°C) from 2013, although still shy of its June record of 101°F (38.3°C) from 1952.
At Kennedy International Airport, the temperature soared to 102°F (38.9°C), breaking the previous daily record of 97°F (36.1°C) from 2010 and surpassing the airport’s June record of 99°F (37.2°C) from 1949.
There’s a bit of a break in store: Wednesday is expected to be slightly cooler, with a high near 94°F (34.4°C), and Thursday could bring a more significant drop, with highs dipping back into the 70s°F (21–26°C).
Times Square, glassy skyscrapers, and sun-drenched sidewalks offered a vivid portrait of the heat: costume performers wilting in the sun, barely dressed pedestrians seeking shade, and the intense glare off buildings turning Manhattan into a mid-summer furnace—a stark reminder of how extreme a late-June heat wave can be in New York City.
