5 times crazy weather changes made you say, ‘Yup, that’s Ohio for you’

1. Record low to jacket weather

On Jan. 2 of this year, temperatures dropped as low as minus-12 degrees, which was a record, but by the next week, it warmed to as high as 59 degrees. Temperatures continued to soar and fall in waves this month with icy conditions one day to sunshine the next and even summer-like thunderstorms.

2. Polar vortex

Remember the Polar Vortex four years ago? That was pretty extreme. Temperatures on Jan. 24, 2014, dropped as low as minus-20 degrees with the windchill, then by Jan. 27 it was 41 degrees and back down to minus-11 (the low for the month without windchill factored in) the next day with a high of 5 degrees.

The high for the month was 52 degrees on Jan. 13, and one week later temperatures ranged from minus-5 to 36 degrees.

3. A crazy warm February

Last February was an unusually warm one. On Feb. 24, 2017, Dayton experienced a record high of 76 degrees and the lowest maximum temperature for the month was 54 degrees. The normal high temperature for February, according to data on weather.gov, is 39 degrees.

4. A hurricane in Ohio?

A surprisingly fierce wind storm from Hurricane Ike threw a punch at the area on Sept. 14, 2008, cutting power to nearly 90 percent of Duke Energy customers and impacting some communities in Southwest Ohio for up to a week.

Wind gusts topped 63 mph in Dayton, but it was even worse just a bit to the south. It set a record of 74 mph at the Cincinnati airport, according to the National Weather Service, which was nearly the force of a Category 1 hurricane (sustained winds of 74-95 mph).

Unofficially, higher wind gusts were recorded in West Chester (84 mph), Lebanon (78 mph) and Wilmington (77 mph).

5. Heat wave

August is typically the hottest month in Ohio, but in 2012, July took that designation. Three record highs were set within an 11-day span, topping out at 102 degrees on July 6 and 7 and 99 degrees on July 17. That week of July 1-7 saw temperatures go from 63 degrees as the low (on July 2, when the high was 93) to that 102 degree maximum. The average temperatures in July are typically 81 degrees for the high and 60 for the low.