LibertyBell

it's hard for ASOS thermometers to be wrong, unless it's a siting issue. Their temperatures (winter and summer) are very similar to mine, if anything it's a little warmer here in the summer especially.

that -13 in the 1980s is absolutely wild..... January 1985?

hell no, none of that dank 40s crap here, I'm hopeful of the westerly flow continuing....

you have a local downslope too!

It's interesting how 1995-96 is both our most snowiest and least windiest winter on record too!!

Yes this is what I wrote too, it's why 2010 had a hotter summer at JFK than at Central Park, there was consistent downslope. We need a dry downsloping wind to have a very hot summer here with many 90 degree temps (over 30) and even 100+ degrees. Which is why I think this summer will be hotter than the last few have been here. I didn't know about the highest average gusts wow. I hope those offshore wind farms are operational now to take advantage of all this wind power!

The funny thing about 1896 is that it had an extremely snowy back end of winter and holds the record for snowiest March on record with over 30 inches of snow (and that was the snowiest month on record and the only month with 30 inches or more of snow at NYC until February 2010 (36.0) and then January 2011 (36.9)

you can use a variety of metrics like number of cold (below 32 degree highs). The predominantly westerly wind is the reason, it's a downsloping wind so it's warmer here (we see this in the summer too when a westerly wind makes JFK hotter than the park.) Also, we haven't had any lows in the single digits or lower-- this is an important component of our colder winters.

Hey did you read about that super heat wave back in 1896? I was genuinely shocked to read about it, 1,500+ people died it was over 90 for highs every night and 72 or higher every night for lows both for 10 days consecutively including three days in a low of lows in the 80s. That must have been hell to live through before we even had electricity. I don't think just looking at averages is good enough either, we probably need something that combines both. That site I mentioned actually has a great way of doing it that measures both. This addresses some of your points and still preserves my memory of the summers I consider the hottest. There's a chart on this page too. The reason why concentration of 90 degree days addresses your point better, I think, is because if you have many days in a row at or above 90 this usually means that the lows are higher than 70 too (see 1896 as the first example of this.) https://thestarryeye.typepad.com/weather/2013/07/how-hot-is-hot-concentration-of-90-degree-days.html Looking at the number of 90-degree days as the sole criterion for gauging how hot a summer has been is a fairly standard measure, but it can be misleading. For instance, it doesn't take into account the fact that in some years 90-degree days are spread over considerably more weeks than other years. That is the subject of this analysis. For my purposes I'll be referring to the period between a year's first and last 90-degree day as the "window". New York's typical 90-degree window (based on 1980-2020) is a few days shy of 13 weeks, starting in late May and continuing thru late August. During this window, one in five days, on average, will see a high in the 90s or triple digits. Looking at records dating back to 1872, the most 90-degree days in a year has been 39 - and it happened twice - in 1991 and 1993. However, while 1991's occurred over a lengthy span of 23 weeks, 1993's were more concentrated, occurring over five fewer weeks. 1991's hot days, in other words, were more "diluted". While 1991 experienced 90-degree temperatures during 24% of its "window", 1993's corresponding figure was 31%. Yet, neither of these hot summers come close to 1999. Although that year had ten fewer 90-degree days, they were concentrated in a sixty-day window. That means that close to half of the days during its 90-degree window were in the 90s. And 1988 wasn't far behind, with 33 90-degree days over 77 days (43% concentration). Four other years with a considerable number of 90-degree days (24 or more) also had a higher concentration of 90-degree temperatures than either 1991 or 1993. So, you be the judge over which summer was hotter.

I was wondering where all this excitement about a March snowstorm came from. Maybe it's just his subscribers lol.

Isn't an early April snowstorm indicative of an el nino the following winter? April 1982 and April 1997 are examples.

https://www.life.com/history/heat-wave-photos-1950s/ this one is more well known The summer of 1953 in New York City was torturous. The temperature was in the 90s (or higher) every day between July 15 and 21, and again between Aug. 24 and Sept. 4 a record-setting 12 days in a row. And that’s not even accounting for other 90-plus days in between.

While looking up heatwaves I found this, wow how did people put up with this all way back in 1896? We post about ancient snowstorms all the time, here's an ancient heatwave... Teddy Roosevelt was NYC Police Commissioner haha. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1896_Eastern_North_America_heat_wave The 1896 eastern North America heat wave was a 10-day heat wave in New York City, Boston, Newark and Chicago that killed about 1,500 people in August 1896.[1][2][3] History [edit] There were ten days of temperatures at least 90 °F (32 °C) with high humidity and little breeze.[4] The temperatures in New York did not drop below 72 °F (22 °C) at night, with three consecutive nights at 80 °F (27 °C) or above. It killed more than the New York City draft riots and the Great Chicago Fire combined.[2] A majority of the deaths were of working-class men in their twenties who performed manual labor. The New York City Public Works Commissioner ordered that his workers' shifts be modified so they would not be working during midday, and he had fire hydrants opened to cool people on the street. Theodore Roosevelt, then New York City Police Commissioner, distributed free ice from local police stations. After accidental deaths from people falling off the roofs they were sleeping on, the New York City Parks Department allowed people to sleep in parks overnight.[1][2]

It's the coldest since 2017-18 going by number of cold days (highs of 32 or below). The coldest this decade though (which doesn't say much about this decade.)

Just by the current warmer 30 year record and even by that standard JFK has been warmer than normal (just barely so within the envelop of average). We've only had 9 officially *cold* days this winter too (days with a high of 32 or lower).

Yes, I consider this an average winter too in terms of temperature, what makes it feel really cold is that wind.

Depends on what you call *lower* I dont consider dewpoints in the 60s to be comfortable, especially with temperatures around 100. And again, like I said thermal energy isn't the same thing as actual heat. Temperature is defined as the average amount of heat. The National Weather Service ranks our hottest summers by number of 90 degree days. If you look up hottest summers in NYC this is the measure you'll find. I agree what with you said about lower moisture being needed for extreme temperatures too, it's why our hottest summers are also our driest summers (it states that at the link I posted below too.) It takes more energy for the sun to heat up a wet ground (and wet air) than it does for the sun to heat up dry ground (and dry air.) I understand what high heat indices do to the body but it's like wind chill, it's not actual temperature. The highest heat index we actually have had in the city was the one recorded in July 1995 from what I recall, it was a combination of a temperature of 103 degrees at LGA and a dew point of 82 if I remember correctly. No data is being thrown out, we're just ranking hottest summers by highest temperature. Something else that's been commented on in previous years is that we have fewer long heatwaves than we used to, our last 7+ day heatwave was back in 2002. https://www.weather.gov/okx/heatwaves I love this list because it corresponds well with my hottest summers list. https://thestarryeye.typepad.com/weather/2012/07/revisiting-new-york-citys-hottest-summers-.html New York's five hottest summers (since 1869) have all occurred since 1960: 2010, 1966, 1993, 1983 and 1999. The fact that just one of the years is from this century may surprise some since these years were so warm worldwide. Two of New York's five hottest summers were also extremely dry. 1966 had the the driest summer on record, with every month receiving less than two inches of rain (1.17" in June; 1.25" in July and 1.89" in August). The summer of 1999 was the fourth driest and featured the second driest June (0.59") and the driest July on record (0.44"). The combined rainfall of those two months was barely more than one inch (average rainfall in June and July is close to eight-and-a-half inches).

winter had that crazy cold wind, Ant

No it's not (and that low of a dew point never happens in our region with a high temperature of 98), Mt Holly said this earlier in a post too. We're not talking about thermal energy, we're talking about more moisture in the air causing the artificially higher low temps. Actual high temperatures measure the average amount maximum amount of heat. 89 degrees with a dew point of 78 might feel worse but technically a temperature of 104 is much hotter regardless of humidity. Dew point does not measure heat or temperature, it measures moisture. Plus you can have temperatures over 100 degrees with dew points over 70 too which is what we had in our hottest summers (1991, 1993, 1999, 2002, 2010, 2011.) 98 with a dew point of 48 never happens here in my experience. The least we would get is a temperature of 98 with a dew point in the 60s (to counter your example.) Plus you're disregarding the fact that the lower temperatures are due to an onshore wind, not a *hotter* wind. I'm pretty sure we are cycling towards a downsloping westerly wind pattern which will cause higher temperatures and lower dewpoints though, so that point is moot-- so I predict a return to the summers of the 90s to 2002 and the early 10s starting this summer.

Even 50s with strong March sunshine will feel warm-- lol anything without wind will feel good as long as it's sunny.

as far as snowfall is concerned, you can definitely be in the 40s during the day and have snowfall at night. We've seen that in April too. I think it was April 2006 (I forget the date-- maybe the 4th?) when we had 1 inch of snow here in the morning and highs in the upper 40s with sunshine in the afternoon. There was another day with a more memorable snowfall towards the end of March 1996 when we had 7 inches of snow here at night and in the morning and temps popped into the 40s and it felt warm in the afternoon when the sun came out. Snowfall depends on timing (which makes it much harder to predict than temperatures.)

I actually want to see if we can avoid 60 degrees during the entirety of astronomical winter, that might be the first time that's ever happened.

He's wrong to say it's going to be in the 60s, there aren't any 60s in sight and we haven't seen 60 degrees since before winter even started. I don't see any 60s until after winter ends either.

In the 2010s yes, but not in the 2020s. This decade has been pretty bad for March snowfall (or snowfall in any month really.)

I'm leery of using overnight temperatures because that's often the result of higher humidity and cloud cover rather than actual heat. I do see your point of using frequency and hourly readings though, it creates a more accurate weighed average.