Chapter 2 of 6
"Hotlanta" is a nickname, not a measurement
Set against 10 other cities (Southeast peers, an East Coast contrast, and three more in Georgia), Atlanta has the coolest average summer afternoon, the smallest humidity premium, and by a wide margin the fewest warm nights: 5.6 a year, against New Orleans's 100.8.
Nights that never drop below 75°F, the ones that keep a body from recovering.
Atlanta ranks 10 of 11 on this metric. Switch metrics above; the ranking reshuffles each time.
One heat dome, 11 cities, the same 72 hours
2012-06-20 – 2012-07-05, 2012. Same "feels like" temperature axis for every strip: the original six Southeast cities all peaked in the same window; watch whether the East Coast and in-state additions did too.
Grid-cell reanalysis, one point per city, not a station record, and not the same 0.25° grid the vulnerability API uses. Recent-era rates (95F+ days, warm nights) computed over 2005-present; JJA means use the full 1940-present record.
Why: Atlanta sits at roughly 1,050 feet elevation and inland from the Gulf, both of which cut against the humidity that drives nighttime heat retention on the coast. See About for how this data was pulled.