Thursday October 10th… Dear Diary. The main purpose of this ongoing blog 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).😉
September And Early October Scoreboard And Climatological Review
I’ve been waiting with proverbial baited breath to post record count statistics from September due to the historic fall heatwave that just ended on 10/6. Apparently there were so many records coming into the system after 9/26 that there was a data logjam, so the NCEI records site delayed showing final numbers for September. Yesterday the logjam finally broke, so I’m pleased to show my updated “Record Scoreboards” that once more depict a warming trend due to carbon pollution.
September 2019 got ranked by the National Center for Environmental Information as a well above average September, temperature wise, for the lower 48 states coming in as 124th coolest or 2nd warmest since records began being kept in 1895 (Top honors go to 1998):
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/national/201909
Here we see rankings for each state in the contiguous United States:
We saw amazing heat across most of the South, which spread north into the Midwest. Five states had their warmest Septembers on record with many having their secin, third or fourth warmest.
Here are my two U.S. Daily Record Scoreboards updated through 10/5/2019 (data compiled from the following NCEI site):
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cdo-web/datatools/records
For these data sets 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 2019. Blue colors represent cold months and red warm. Those months and years with counts close to a 1 to 1 ratio of highs to lows are colored black. Boldly colored months, such as May 2018 and now September 2019, have ratios of more than 10 to 1 daily record highs to lows or lows to highs, and are either historically hot or cold, most of which have made news.
September 2019 had a near 31-1 ratio of record DHMX to DLMN individual record counts, so the color I used for this month was bold red on the top chart.
September 2019 had a near 4-1 ratio of record DHMN to DLMX individual record counts, so the color I used for this month was red on the bottom chart.
The bottom line here is that there were many more warm or hot records than cool set or tied during September 2019, a statistic matching up well with the figure of a ranking of 124 for the month. Due to climate change we will see less blue colors on these Record Scoreboards with time.
As stated, the ranking for the month was 124, which was colored red. I color rankings +10 or -10 from the average ranking of 62 black indicating that these are near average temperature wise.
October 2019 has gotten off to being another well above average month looking at record counts. No wonder coming off that historic fall heat wave.
So far, the U.S. has seen a near average 2019 looking at temperature averages and record counts, but we may be experiencing one of the last “tolerable” years, temperature wise, in the face of global warming. We will see if this chart changes much for 2019 through the end of this year:
The following are quotes from last month’s Record Scoreboard assessment, which I think my readers in the forecasting world will find unteresting:
“For forecasters I have an interesting take. Through July 2019 the 2019 bar on the above chart was “blue” since through 8/1/2019 there were more DHMX to DLMN records being recorded, much like in 2013 and 2014. Remember that long ago I stated that I was very interested in “bumps and oscillations” on charts and graphs because they can tell us something. After 2014 we had a big “spike” of warmth in 2016 followed by what I would have expected, a slow decrease in record ratio warmth. We may have started to experience another surge in warmth, being quite due after July 2019, particularly just following another El Nino event, albeit a weak one. Those of 1998 and 2016 were the most powerful ever recorded. “
“Given that the “average” ratio for the 2010s is about 2.1 to 1 of DHMX to DLMN for an individual year, we might be able to forecast what will happen for the rest of 2019. The year started out cool but could end up warm, getting closer to the “equilibrium” 2.1-1 ratio. Conversely, a year that starts out quite warm through 8/1 may end up cooler. Perhaps this has seasonal forecasting possibilities. “
“This happened in 2017 and 2018 but not so much in 2016 when a near record El Nino was the biggest climatological factor overriding any other trends:”
Well, what I surmised a month ago did come to fruition in the form of an Amazing fall heat wave from September into October. We will see what transpires temperature wise for the rest of this year.
October numbers and assessments should prove interesting, so stay tuned to this website for updates.
Here is more climate and weather news from Thursday:
(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. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article.)
Here are some chilly “ETs” from Canada and the western United States:
(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.)
Guy Walton- “The Climate Guy”