Nashville’s 7th hottest summer created brutal nights

If Nashville’s summer season ended one week early, the city would have ended up with its second-hottest summer ever — and warmest overnight temperatures. 

But a colder weather pattern shifted the season out of the record books. 

This summer ultimately landed as the seventh-hottest on record, with an average of 81.2 degrees, just behind 2022.

The city did experience its hottest July on record, tied with 1954, with an average of 84 degrees, according to data from the National Weather Service that goes back to 1874. The city hit at least 90 degrees for 30 consecutive days in July, surpassing the 2022 streak as the fifth-longest heat streak on record.

Today was the 1st time since 7/1 that Nashville did not reach 90°, thus ending a 30-day string of 90°+ readings. It’s the 5th-longest such streak in Nashville’s history & the longest string of 90° days without reaching 100°. The highest temperature during this 30-day run was 98°.

— NWS Nashville (@NWSNashville) August 2, 2025

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High humidity levels prevented the city from cooling down much this summer, often feeling oven-like well into the evening. 

On the flip side, humidity kept a lid on daytime temperatures, according to Wil Tollefson, Tennessee’s assistant state climatologist. 

“With more humidity in the air, some of the sun’s energy is going into heating that water and evaporating it from plants, from streams and rivers,” Tollefson said. “That just keeps the actual sensible heat a little bit lower.”

Compare that to the nation’s hottest spots, like Death Valley in the West: Deserts often get hot, dry days and cool nights in the summer. 

But muggy cities like Atlanta and Nashville tend to max out in the 90s during the day — though heat indices reached levels exceeding 115 degrees this summer — and remain in the 80s in the evenings. 

That reflects the local trend with global warming: Summers in Nashville don’t allow escapes from the heat, which is stressful for bodies and minds, according to Tollefson.

This year, the city concluded the summer season with the second-hottest average low temperature on record, at 71 degrees Fahrenheit, tied with 2022 and just shy of the record of 71.2. 

During one week in July, the city’s mean low was 77 degrees. That’s warmer than the city’s average high in May.