The Earth is at its furthest from the Sun on Thursday

The Earth's orbit around the Sun isn't quite circular. Earth is at its closest (perihelion) in January furthest (aphelion) on July.

With recent temperatures soaring into the mid 90s, you'd expect the opposite would be true during these hot summer days, but Earth reaches aphelion about 30 minutes before sunset Thursday July 6, 2023. We'll be 3.1 million miles closer on January 2, 2024.

The Sun is about 2% smaller in the sky and about 7% less sunlight reaches Earth around aphelion but seasonal weather patterns are shaped much more by the distribution of the contents and the Earth's tilt than its proximity to the Sun

There is a lot more land in the northern hemisphere than the southern hemisphere.  During northern summer, the Sun climbs higher in the sky and shines on all that land much longer, raising temperatures.

An old astronomer's trick to remembering the difference between perihelion and aphelion the that the words "away" and "aphelion" both begin with the letter "A".