SPOKANE, Wash. — The intense heat of July and early August may be gone, but now comes the price of keeping cool. Electric bills for our staff at 4 News Now are coming in high after last month, and we bet yours are too.
This summer could be one of the costliest on record for cooling costs, but that’s been the case a lot recently. Using the concept of cooling degree days, half of the top ten years for cooling demand in Spokane were in the last decade.
Here’s how cooling degree days work. If the average temperature for a given day is above 65 degrees, there’s a good bet that your air conditioner may kick on at some point during the day.
For example, on July 21, 2024 Spokane had a low of 72, a high of 107 and an average temperature of 90. That translates to 25 CDD by counting how many degrees the average temperature was above 65.
When you add up all the cooling degree days for a given year, you can get a picture of how hot that year was and how much air conditioning would have been used.
As of August 7, 2024, Spokane has 602 CDD. That’s the third most in the city’s 143-year climate record at this point in the year. It’s already 20th highest on record. There’s another two months that you can reasonably expect to add more CDD, which puts this year on pace for a top-five to top-ten year for cooling demand.
This method works for heating in the winter too. If the average temperature is below 65, your heat might kick on overnight. Heating degree days are down 9% in Spokane since 1950, meaning there’s less heating demand than 74 years ago.
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