Tuesday December 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).😉
The Climate Lottery: Winter 2019/20 Contest
The Climate Lottery is a forecast contest free to play by giving your picks in an e-mail or in this post’s comment section. No prizes will be given out for the contest, which is for educational purposes only. The main purpose for the contest is to make people interested in National Center for Environmental Information climate products. The special account that I have set up for the contest is guywalton10@gmail.com. This time I will make a personal pick, following along with any players.
The National Center for Environmental Information ranking numbers for average temperatures of the lower 48 states for Winter 2019/20 will be posted on or shortly after March 7th, 2020 which will be the official “Climate Lottery” numbers of the contest. Any subsequent changes by NCEI after their initial posted rankings will not be valid for the contest…but those ranking numbers will change with time.
The winning Climate Lottery numbers for Fall 2019 (SEP, OCT, NOV) were 124/16/48 with a Power Ball number of 74 for the season.
Hello again to all weather and climate geeks out there. Fall 2019 turned out to be another above average season, temperature wise, for most of the United States. If you wish to play “The Climate Lottery” pick one number between 1 and 125 (with 1 representing the coldest possible ranking and 125 being the highest possible ranking) for September, October, and November 2019. Also, pick a “Power Ball” or overall ranking number for Fall 2019 between 1 and 125. The Power Ball ranking will serve as a tiebreaker for any close picks between contestants. Your picks are NCEI rankings for average temperatures across the lower 48 states. Since 2019 is the 125th year that the National Center for Environmental Information has been ranking years since 1895 all months for 2019 will have a warmest ranking of 125. The year 2019 would be the 125th year. Those rankings for 2019 will have a range from 1 to 125 with the coldest ranking being the number 1.
Please give your picks to Guywalton10@gmail.com before January 5th, 2020. If you wait until just before January 5th to make your picks you can make an educated guess as to what the ranking for December will be (and, also a heads-up guess for January). All data can be found at the National Center for Environmental Information site noted here:
https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/us-maps/1/201702#us-maps-select
The Power Ball (or overall National Center for Environment Information) number for Fall 2019 for the lower 48 states was 74, which was slightly above the average ranking of 62.5, for the lower 48 states. In the Climate Lottery game, I’ve defined each individual lottery number as rankings for each month for the lower 48 states, Power Ball numbers as those for each season, and Mega Ball numbers as those for each year.
Chances for an entire season of below average temperatures are becoming much less likely across the lower 48 states due to carbon pollution. The whole point of these posts is to demonstrate how skewed temperatures have become towards warmth due to climate change. Of course, as far as the globe goes, the larger an area that is compared to average, the more likely that area is to be above long term averages. What has happened this decade is yet more proof of the climate lottery game being loaded for warmth in the United States. Balls coming out of the Climate Lottery hopper are likely to have high numbers, but we saw some low numbers scattered about the country going down to a statewide basis this fall.
Here’s a breakdown of the National Climatic Center’s ranking numbers by state for Summer 2019, which was ranked as 74th coolest (or a Powerball ranking of 74):
The Southeast had a warm fall overall while much of the West saw colder than average temperatures.
The following is a breakdown of each month for Fall 2019. Each chart shows “Climate Lottery” numbers for each state (or rankings) from a scale of 1 to 125.
In September the overall ranking for the lower 48 states was 124 (out of 125):
Most of the eastern 2/3rds of the U.S. had a historically hot September going into the first week of October. Five states as depicted had their hottest September’s on record.
In November 2019 the overall ranking for the lower 48 states was 48 (out of 125):
An Arctic outbreak chilled the Midwest and South. Much of the West saw a warming trend.
The following are the rankings, so far, for individual months or “climate lottery number picks” for the 2010s:
The average ranking for 2019 is 62.5 since the coldest ranking would be 1 and the hottest 125. I have color coded all rankings for this post at or below 42 blue and all those at or above 82 red with rankings + or – 20 from the mean value of 62 black. With time, the rankings for each individual month, season and year will change as more data becomes available from NCEI. Also, for reference, the annual or “Mega Ball” numbers are shown on the chart. The mega ball number for 2018 was 111 meaning that 2018 was the thirteenth warmest year on record for the lower 48 states.
Seasonal or Power Ball rankings for winter are those for DEC/JAN/FEB, spring are MAR/APR/MAY, summer JUN/JUL/AUG, and fall SEP/OCT/NOV. Also, keep in mind that NCEI rankings for seasons are not merely an average of rankings of individual month of a season or year as was the case for Fall 2019- 124/16/48 P.B.74:
As of Fall 2019 seasonal data for the 2010s is complete. Notice that since the start of 2010 only four out of forty seasons have been well below average or “blue.” Thirty out of forty seasons since 2010 have been “red” or above average. Fall 2019 was slightly above average but landed in the neutral range of numbers, so was colored black. Indeed, the Climate Lottery hopper is very much loaded for above average temperatures for the lower 48 states looking at recent history. Yes, the “casino of climate averages” is cheating causing the “house of warming” due to carbon pollution to win just about every season.
I hope that everyone will have a great winter.
Guy Walton
“The Climate Guy”
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Here is more climate and weather news from Tuesday:
(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.)
(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”