The SELECT statement doesn't seem to function correctly in the example below.

[Rob P]

table weather (date, temphi, templo).

Looks like this:
2010-7-24, 83, 57
2010-7-25, 94, 60
2010-7-26, 98, 58
2010-7-27, 93, 61
2010-7-28, 87, 59

Statement is:
SELECT date, max(temphi) from weather;

I expected 2010-7-26, 98 but got 2010-7-24, 98, clearly the wrong date on which the high temperature was reported.
All tables with all such data erroneously return the first row's element (in this case the first date) but correctly give the high temp, 98.

Is there a way to do this that works? Thanks

[code green]

It does function correctly.
This is actually an illegal query in some SQL because you are using an aggregate function for temphi,
but date is not part of a GROUP BY or aggregate.
However MySQL uses some algorithm to 'guess' which date you want but the result can be unpredictable.
I think you will have to use

GROUP BY ... HAVING or
a sub-query WHERE temphi = (SELECT MAX(temphi))

My brain refuses to write the correct full syntax for this but I hope I have helped.