Extreme Temperature Diary- January 1st, 2019/ Topic: Some Processed 2018 Climatology Summaries

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Tuesday January 1st… Dear Diary. The main purpose of this ongoing post will be to track United States extreme or record temperatures related to climate change. Any reports I see of ETs will be listed below the main topic of the day. I’ll refer to extreme or record temperatures as ETs (not extraterrestrials)😊. 

Some Processed 2018 Climatology Summaries

Happy New Year Everyone! Today’s post will be very fluid because I will be scouring social media, adding 2018 climate summaries as they come across my radar. You might want to check this post later during the day to see how much more I have added. To start let’s look at what I specialize in, record count data from the National Center For Environmental Information site. We have a big caveat to start off 2019 with. Due to the U.S. government shutdown all climate sites cannot be accessed, which may become a big problem for various organizations relying on climate data should the shutdown persist well into the new year. I was able to glean record count data through 12/22/18 so the following tables are pretty much complete except for December 2018:

The following chart shows all counts of set daily high maxes and daily low minimums set across the United States:

For this data set all monthly ratios of  > 10 to 1 DHMX to DLMN or > 10 to 1 DLMN to DHMX are in bold type. The rankings are for the lower 48 states with the warmest ranking since 1895 of average temperatures being 124 and 1 being the coldest as of 2018. Blue colors represent cold months and red warm. Those months with counts close to a 1 to 1 ratio of highs to lows are colored black. Boldly colored months, such as May 2018, have ratios of more than 10 to 1 daily record highs to lows or lows to highs, and are either historically hot or cold. November 2018 had a well below 1 to 1 ratio of record DHMX to DLMN individual counts, so the color I used for this month was blue. NCEI has processed November data across the country, determining that the lower 48 had its 27th coldest month since 1895, also added to the chart. The number 27 falls lower than the mid range (+ or – 10  from 62) or (1-41, 52-72, 73-124), so is also colored blue. December 2018 appears to be a a relatively warm month, and I would not be surprised to learn eventually that it came in as one of the top 20 warmest Decembers.

How does 2018 stack up with the rest of the years for this decade? Here is me 2010s decadal chart:

While the U.S. had another warm year 2018 falls far short of a near record warm 2016 mainly due to a cold April and November as shown on the “Record Scoreboard” chart. Remember that the warmth from 2016 was mostly induced from a near record warm El Nino. Global warming, as we know, surges in fits and spurts with some years not being as warm as recent prior years, but always trending hotter due to carbon pollution. How do the 2010s fit in with prior decades? Take a look:

Both nationally and globally the 2010s with one more year to go are still on track to be even warmer than the 2000s, the warmest decade in human history.

What about daily record high minimums and low maximums?  Regrettably I did not update these files before the government outage prevented me from adding December data, but you can see overall trends for 2018:

The only difference between this Record Scoreboard and the first is that ratios of more or less than 10 to 1 are not in bold type. Here is what we see with the other two decadal charts:

Count trends with daily high mins/low maxes are very similar to daily high maxes/low mins. The year 2016 was the warmest year of this decade, so far. No matter how one slices and dices climate data the overall trend is for more warmth across the planet. My heart aches to know that this added warmth due to carbon pollution will cause much havoc during the next couple of decades, much more relatively than what has been experienced during the first two decades of the 21st century.

Looks like France had its hottest year on record. This is a big deal:

 

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Poland  also comes in as warmest on record for 2018:

We can now add Germany to the list:

And Austria:

For December 2018:

 

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Here is other climate and weather news from Wednesday:

(As usual, this will be a fluid post in which more information gets added during the day as it crosses my radar, crediting all who have  put it on-line. Items will be archived on this site for posterity.)

 

Well here we go. 2019 is off to a warm start in some areas. Here are the year’s first “ETs:”

(If you like these posts and my work please contribute via the PayPal widget, which has recently been added to this site. Thanks in advance for any support.) 

The Climate Guy

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