Extreme Temperature Diary- Tuesday November 7th, 2023/Main Topic: Record Warmth Overtakes a Good Chunk of the U.S. This Week

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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: Record Warmth Overtakes a Good Chunk of the U.S. This Week

Dear Diary. Yesterday we delved into astounding record warmth taking place since the start of the month across most of Asia, in particularly the Far East. Today we will look at climate change related record November heat occurring this week across the United States for our main subject. This is coming off our first record cold snap that happened from the last week of October into the first few days of November in which hundreds of Daily records were set. While not quite as historic in nature, there will be some outstanding reports coming from this warm spell.

There is a heat dome in association with record warmth this week. Here we see it at its zenith on Wednesday:

Since we are in November, we won’t see a life-threatening heat wave from this heat dome, but many records will be set since readings will get into the 80s and 90s, mainly where ground is dry from a long-term drought that has been expanding across the South. Yes, we do have a positive feedback situation here where drought breeds heat and vice a versa. Here are more details from the Washington Post:

U.S. temperatures spiking in November, with some 25 degrees above normal – The Washington Post

After planet’s hottest October, U.S. temperatures are spiking in November

Dozens of record highs in the 80s and even 90s are predicted in parts of the central and eastern U.S. through Thursday

By Matthew Cappucci

November 7, 2023 at 1:12 p.m. EST

Temperature departures from average, as forecast Tuesday by the National Weather Service. (WeatherBell)

November is feeling more like September across much of the southern and eastern United States, with temperatures running well above average from the Rockies to the Eastern Seaboard. Unseasonable warmth looks to carry toward Thanksgiving, the lengthy spate of mildness coming on the heels of the Earth’s warmest October on record, according to data from European and Japanese research centers.

The data shows October came in at about 3 degrees (1.7 Celsius) above the long-term average or about 0.7 degrees (0.4 Celsius) above the next warmest year, and the planet has all but secured its warmest year on record.

Even though November started with a chill across the Lower 48 states — in sharp contrast to Asia, where it’s been exceptionally warm — the script has flipped this week.

Myriad records are in jeopardy on Tuesday, with highs expected to peak in the mid-90s in parts of Texas and above 80 degrees in the Tennessee Valley. More records are likely Wednesday across the Midwest and lower Appalachians before the heat shifts toward the Interstate 95 corridor on Thursday.

Thereafter, a slight cool-down is expected into the weekend before another warm-up overtakes the Plains into the start of the next workweek. The National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center, moreover, is predicting a high likelihood of above-average temperatures over much of the central and eastern Lower 48 during the next two weeks.

The Climate Prediction Center’s forecast of where temperatures are likely to be above or below average through mid-November. (Pivotal Weather)

Records that have fallen so far

On Monday, the heat was building over the Plains and Midwest. Here’s a sampling of some of the records set:

  • Lubbock, Tex., hit 88 degrees, breaking the previous record of 85 set in 1975.
  • Childress, Tex., hit91 degrees, breaking the previous record of 87 set in 1945.
  • Evansville, Ind., hit 78 degrees, tying the record of 78 set both in 1915 and 1916.
  • Little Rock hit 83 degrees, breaking the previous record of 81 set in 1915. The average high temperature is 65 degrees.
  • Nashville hit 79 degrees, which also ties a record set in 1915. The average high temperature is also 65 degrees.

What’s next

Tuesday

Predicted high temperatures on Tuesday from the National Weather Service. Boxed values are predicted records. (WeatherBell)

On Tuesday, the heat was sliding east, peaking in intensity over the Mississippi Valley. Memphis will flirt with records in the mid 80s, Nashville will probably break a record at 81 degrees and Knoxville should tie a record at 79. In Huntsville, Ala., a record-tying 82 degrees is predicted.

Mid-80s are predicted across Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas, coming within a degree or two of records.

A few 90s are slated to pepper the map in Texas, like in Abilene, which will likely eclipse the record of 89 set back in 1963; bookkeeping there dates to 1885. Lubbock could tie another record at 89 degrees, and Childress could lurch to 93 — surpassing the previous record by 90 degrees.

In the Panhandle, Amarillo was looking at a high of 86, coming just 8 days after the city reported a morning low of 22 degrees.

Wednesday

Predicted high temperatures on Wednesday from the National Weather Service. Boxed values are predicted records. (WeatherBell)

On Wednesday, the greatest temperature departures from average will shift into the Midwest and Tennessee Valley, with highs ranging 25 to 30 degrees above average along the Ohio River. Nashville will probably set a record at 84, Lexington, Ky., should hit 78, also a record, and St. Louis is forecast to tie a record at 82 degrees. That would be 22 degrees above St. Louis’s average high of 50 degrees.

Mid-80s will be common from Memphis southeastward across the Deep South, with 80s in the Carolinas. Raleigh will flirt with a record at 80 degrees.

Thursday

Predicted high temperatures on Thursday from the National Weather Service. Boxed values are predicted records. (WeatherBell)

By Thursday, the heat will be primarily relegated to the Mid-Atlantic and interior Southeast. Washington, D.C., could approach 80 degrees, even though the average is closer to 60. If it hits 80, it would mark the fourth latest in the year on record. Charlotte is expected to hit 81, flirting with the record of 82. Columbia, S.C., will peak in the mid-80s. Atlanta could tie a record at 80 degrees; the city’s average high is 66.

The overall pattern

The heat is caused by a dome of mid-level high pressure, or warm, sinking air, which has been slowly pushing across the country. That sinking air squashes cloud cover and allows for sunshine, helping temperatures to soar.

A counterclockwise-spinning surface low pressure system, meanwhile, is traversing the Great Lakes. That’s helping strengthen southerly winds, bolstering temperatures even more.

Climate connection

Since the start of the year, the United States has had 27,255 instances of weather stations setting calendar day record highs, compared to 19,574 record cold maximum temperatures. That’s a ratio of roughly 1.4 to 1. For overnight lows, the warm to cold record ratio is even more dramatic — 2.5 to 1.

This inequity is even more dramatic for monthly and all-time (for any calendar day) records. Consider there have been a total of 178 all-time record highs in the United States this year, but only eight stations with all-time record cold maximum readings. That’s a ratio of 22 to 1.

If it seems like warm weather makes headlines more often than cold weather, it’s because there’s more of it.

In an unchanging world, we’d expect a roughly even balance of warm and cold temperature records. But in an era earmarked by a swiftly-warming atmosphere because of the burning of oil, coal and gas, there’s no more balance. Earth’s climate is skewed hot, and we see it in the daily numbers.

Ian Livingston and Jason Samenow contributed to this report.

By Matthew Cappucci Matthew Cappucci is a meteorologist for Capital Weather Gang. He earned a B.A. in atmospheric sciences from Harvard University in 2019, and has contributed to The Washington Post since he was 18. He is an avid storm chaser and adventurer, and covers all types of weather, climate science, and astronomy. Twitter

Here are more “ET’s” recorded from around the planet the last couple of days, their consequences, and some extreme temperature outlooks, as well as any extreme precipitation reports:

Here is some more new October 2023 climatology:

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. The most noteworthy items will be listed first.)

Today’s News on Sustainable, Traditional Polluting Energy from Fossil Fuel, and the Green Revolution:

More from the Weather Department:

More on the Environment and Nature:

More on Other Science and the Beauty of Earth and this Universe:

If you like these posts and my work on record temperature ratios, please contribute via my PayPal widget on this site. Thanks in advance for any support. 

Guy Walton… “The Climate Guy”

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