LibertyBell

I miss my dry hot summers. Last week was good but very shortlived. The more it rains the more harmful bugs we get and the taller the weeds are. More spraying becomes necessary to eliminate both.

Someone needs to do a study of the 50s to find out what was causing all those 100+ degree temperatures, all those extremely long heatwaves and all those east coast TC landfalls and even a few powerful tornadoes thrown into the mix!!!

yes that moisture has curbed our triple digit heat...until this summer!!!

Yes this is exactly what I've been saying. As a matter of fact I'd go further and say this is the first time we have seen this kind of heat since 2013 and in reality since 2011.

Do you think the extreme heat we have seen this summer for the first time since 2011 is due to the strong el nino we had 2 years ago Chris?

Yes, that's the way we are getting higher average temperatures. High temperatures are going up too, but at a slower rate than low temperatures. I think at some point the high temperatures will flatten out depending on how close you are to the ocean. For example, JFK's average high temperatures will probably flatten out at under 90 but higher than 85 (based on the temperature increase data I've looked at.) While EWR's average high temperatures will probably flatten out at under 95 but higher than 90.

And several more 90 degree days, JFK is out to a similar lead that they had in 2010. Do you think Central Park should have broken its all time 90 degree day record in 2010 just like JFK, LGA, and EWR did and perhaps even have had more 100 degree days, Don? It would be interesting to do a reanalysis of Central Park's data from 2010 to see if they should have broken the records they set in 1991 and 1993 of 39 90 degree days.

it's amazing how dry 1941-1970 and secondly 1951-1980 were compared to the 30 year periods that came before and after those two periods. No wonder they had so many 100 degree days and 7+ day heatwaves.

Thanks Don, so the rainfall amounts are still rising even compared to the 1990-2020 period. From 2.41 days per week and average total summer rainfall of 13.69 inches to 2.42 days per week and 13.99 inches of average total summer rainfall for 1995-2024. At this rate the 2001-2030 period should be the first one that averages 14.00 inches of average total summer rainfall. Something else I noted from your graphs, is that although the 1911-1940 period peaked with 2.45 rain days per week, it only averaged 12.42 inches of rain per summer. The driest period was 1941-1970 which was also during our big heatwave/100+ degree bonanza period of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s (not a coincidence) when we averaged 2.17 rain days per week and only 10.64 inches of rain per summer. The dryness probably led to the extreme heat and longer heatwaves of that era. There is no other 30 year period that comes close to matching 1941-1970 for dryness and the second driest period came right after it, 1951-1980 with 2.21 rain days per week and 11.03 inches average total summer rainfall. All the other periods are near 12 inches of total summer rainfall or above.

Yes, it's completely out of range compared to the other reporting stations. But the wetter climate might be shortening the length of heatwaves and also limiting the frequency of 100 degree temperatures (compared to how frequent 7 day heatwaves and 100 degree temperatures were during the 1990s for example.)

But what about these fronts stalling near the coast, something we really did not see at least in the month of July in summers like 1991, 1993, 1999, 2002, etc (basically the summers with the longest heatwaves since 1953.) From what I remember of 1993 and 1999 and 2002 especially, the fronts always died out before they made it into our region (at least in July.) This enabled us to have extra long heatwaves without being interrupted with days of rain.

also much rainier summers and shorter heatwaves, something which I outlined in an earlier post.

Yes, nothing like the extreme heat we had in 1966 or 1993 or 1999 around the same time frame. This is why I say our extreme heat has flatlined.

This front needs to go away.... on a positive note, my forecast is for mostly sunny and clear blue skies from Thursday through Monday.

One other thing I have seen and maybe you can comment on Chris, is much rainier summers since 2002 leading to overgrowth of foliage. We aren't supposed to be this green in the summer, we're not in a tropical rain forest (or at least aren't supposed to be.) Our climate was much drier in 1988, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1999, 2002. Our normal summer pattern is to have sunshine 6 out of every 7 days with a few hours of showers and thunderstorms one day every week. Now, we get stalled fronts and multiple days of rain (like yesterday and today). In our hotter summers, the Bermuda ridge is supposed to be strong enough to keep all fronts well to our west and north and very little rain in July. That's been my experience living here. What caused this to change that now fronts stall in our area-- as if we live in Florida? Our climate has become like the Gulf Coast, where they do get fronts but the fronts stall out and you get days of rain. It's okay to get 2 days of rain after a 100+ degree heatwave but we didn't have that over the weekend, we had a very modest heatwave and we still have to deal with a stalled front in July? Why? Growing up, this never happened here when we had a normal hot summer. And because of this fake artificial rainier climate we are in now, our heatwaves have become MUCH shorter, note how long the heatwaves were in 1993, 1999 and 2002, we just do not get that anymore.

That was the year thousands of people died in the MW, especially near Chicago.

This matches my memory of 1993 being the last year when we had good data coming out of Central Park. I noticed that wind speeds, snowfall and temperature data were lower quality after that. Do you think using ASOS itself also has something to do with the poor data or is it purely a siting issue? I also see lower quality wind reports and precip type reports coming out of there.

But average temperatures <> extreme temperatures I would much rather have higher highs than have average temperatures increase. The differences between our highs and lows seems to be becoming less.

Well, instead of closing it, why didn't they actually move the equipment downtown, where people actually live and work? The 160 years of data, I don't see that as important as the climate has changed so much that what happened during the 1800s and early 1900s is now completely irrelevant.

Why did they leave to go to Upton and more to the point why were they allowed to leave? I consider parks no better than zoos, they are an artificial *natural* entity created inside a concrete jungle. If one wants to see nature one should visit a forest. I don't see the conservation movement as being helpful when it comes to parks at all, in the same way I don't see the confinement of animals in zoos as being natural either.

Maybe we are cycling back to longer and more intense heatwaves in the East now..... it's frustrating for all those records to be from the 40s and 50s and 60s and for a few years in the 90s. We need to end the corn and soy subsidies in the MW, those crops ramp up the humidity.

Maybe that was the reason for some of the scorching summers we had in the 40s and 50s (that and all the nuke testing.) I know this idea has been floated around to explain the extremely hot summers of 1944, 1948, 1949, 1953, 1955.

I'm glad we are finally getting a real hot summer here. I can do without all this rain though, I can't stand how bugs overpopulate in the rain.

with the extreme heat we had already in June (matching and even exceeding 2010), I'm optimistic about a -NAO next winter.

I don't know man, we've had massive flooding and a lightning strike just burned down a house near here tonight. I like my summers dry, wet summers mean more bugs and then I have to spray pesticides everywhere to kill them off.