The main purpose of this ongoing blog will be to track planetary 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).😉
Main Topic: Rechecking Record Stats From The Hottest Summer In Recorded History For The U.S.
Dear Diary. Before this summer fades into history, it would be worthwhile to recheck record count statistics to spot trends. One question we will try to answer here is what can we expect the next time we get a record hot summer.
Let’s look at some record scoreboard statistics involving reported record high maxes and low minimums (from the National Center for Environmental Information as of 9/11/21):
Even during the hottest summer in recorded history there were some record cool conditions. The totals for June through August (or meteorological summer) were 13,229 DHMX to 1,812 DLMN. By far, the most record heat came from June 2021. Notice that since 2018 during the warmer months there were still hundreds of reports of daily record low minimums. The colder months had thousands of reports of record low minimums. Clearly, this is what we can expect to see the next time we get another record warm season. Will fall 2021 be historically warm? Looking at stats from September, temperatures sure have started down that road.
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 127 and 1 being the coldest as of 2021. 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 June 2021, 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.
To wrap up our Summer 2021 NCEI statistics let’s look at monthly and all-time records:
During Summer 2021 there were 1,118 monthly record high maxes and only 57 monthly record low minimums, with the bulk of the monthly record high maxes coming from June. June hot stats were padded mainly from historic western heatwaves.
During Summer 2021 we saw 426 all-time record high maximum reports, far outstripping numbers from the prior three summers. Of course, June 2021 with its historic western heatwaves took the cake, so to speak. The next record hottest summer should have approximately the same number of reports, in excess of 400.
Unfortunately, due to global warming trends, we will probably see another record hot summer during the next 5-10 years. It will be so hot during that near future year that there will be many fatalities, just like in 2021…just stating with a warning.
Here is more 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. In most instances click on the pictures of each tweet to see each article. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)
Now here are some of today’s articles and notes on the horrid COVID-19 pandemic:
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Guy Walton “The Climate Guy”