Taylor Swift's “august” finished at number 24 on the 2020 U.S. year-end Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart.
A year-end chart position summarizes a song's performance across the entire calendar year rather than recording its highest weekly placement. “august” benefited from the immediate attention surrounding Folklore's July release and therefore had several months to accumulate chart activity in 2020.
Its weekly peak on the same genre chart was higher, at number five. That distinction explains why number 24 is not a contradiction: number five is the best single-week position, while number 24 is the year-end ranking.
The song's later annual revivals happened after the 2020 year-end list was published. Its renewed August streaming activity helped it return to charts in later years, including a number-46 peak on the Billboard Global 200.