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mjr

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  1. Having a hard time finding historical lists of annual 90+ days for various stations, for example LGA, EWR, BOS, DCA, with LGA being a proxy for the NY metropolitan area. While there is no question that BOS<LGA<DCA, I'm wondering if there have been any years in which either part of the inequality didn't apply (Central Park is a different story). While it seems to apply so far in 2022, it would be interesting if artificial local anomalies (tree canopy or Newark hot spot as opposed to proximity to ocean) are able to overwhelm climatological norms this year so that EWR would have more 90+ days than DCA while NYC would have fewer than BOS in the same year. After a slow start BOS has been gaining on NYC. Of course, number of 90+days is one dimensional and totally misleading but that is the benchmark that everyone uses.
  2. Great idea...problem solved.
  3. Backdoor cold fronts suck. They can happen at any time of the year. I believe that the geography of LI Sound helps funnel NE winds into NYC and propels some of these fronts through when one might expect them to remain to the east of us. Also, I feel that this makes it more difficult for them to return through NYC as a warm front. I have been frustrated at forecasts predicting sunny 80 degree temps only to spend the day in the 50s while central NJ gets up to 80. I have no evidence to back this up but it seems to me that these fronts frequently occur in situations that feature an upper level eastern ridge. Upper level eastern ridges can translate to surface highs over Eastern Canada which send down backdoor fronts. I am also pretty pessimistic about EWR reaching 70 Tuesday unless we experience unexpected afternoon breaks of sun.
  4. September will end up with a mean temperature above 70, probably around 70.3. The Central Park thermometer tried its best to make sure that it would not happen but the month ended one day too early. A few weeks ago someone was going to write a letter concerning the foliage issue to the powers that be. I wonder if anything ever came of that. w
  5. Very interesting research. I have always considered the C-D boundary to extend from St. Louis to NYC, roughly following the Ohio river. Amazing how changes of a fraction of a degree can put you in a completely different climate zone. I guess the line has to be drawn somewhere, though. When I looked at the Britannica article, though, it struck me that on the map, the Eastern seaboard of the US could not be based on a 26.6F demarcation. I dug a little deeper and it turns out that the map is based on a 2007 revision which does, in fact, use 32.0F. Thanks for sharing this.
  6. A south wind at JFK comes directly off the cool ocean (about 1500 miles of it). At Newark, even a south wind with no westerly component, travels over about 50 miles of land. Places like LGA and NYC are far enough away from the ocean so that they can experience significant daytime heating even if an afternoon sea breeze eventually cuts it off. During the spring there can be times when the temperature difference between Newark and JFK can be 20 degrees or more. La Guardia underperforms if the wind direction is from the NE or ENE coming off Long Island Sound. Central Park underperforms if the trees have leaves on them. Interestingly, the Boston airport station is also directly on the ocean but there the ocean is to the east. Thus, a south or southwest wind at Boston will allow for hot temperatures and a west wind even hotter because of a downslope effect. However, a wind from the north through the east (or, alternatively, a light pressure gradient allowing for an afternoon sea breeze) will result in unpleasantly chilly temperatures. Geography is destiny.
  7. At this time of year, under the right conditions, the high sun angle and dry ground can cause a hot air mass to be created in the Northern Plains without the need for the heat to be advected from the south. More southern areas may possibly be less extreme because of clouds, precipitation or whatever. This hot northern airmass can eventually be transported eastward to northern New England and Quebec. In this scenario, the heat goes from west to east and not from south to north.
  8. Hope so. This midafternoon flatline effect occurs too often to just be a coincidence.
  9. NYC was doing ok up to 2pm, generally keeping up with most other stations. No appreciable effect of the rain yesterday. Then, all of a sudden, it basically flatlines while other locations add 2-4 degrees more. This happens very frequently even with no sea breeze. It cannot take advantage of mid or late afternoon temperature increases. It seems likely that it because of deprivation of sun after about 2pm.
  10. Nantucket is more likely to see such temperatures than Central Park. Seriously, would not be surprised if many stations in New England end the season with more 90s than NYC. They have a good head start.
  11. Good forecast except NYC flat lined at 81 from 2pm on. Sunny skies, no sea breeze, only station to do so. Have seen this frequently in past years.
  12. It is precisely because of its significance that the historical record should not be corrupted by unrepresentative (of the larger surrounding area) data. They did "mess" with the site when the moved it to its current location back in the 1990s. To be fair, they probably could not foresee that this would lead to any significant change from the previous location but the "mess" soon became apparent. As is true in the stock market, they should have just "cut their losses" and rectified the situation. Even if, in an ideal world, the local population and the local media would be aware of the situation and analyze/report accordingly, this would not address the misconceptions that are created when national/world media as well as professional weather news and forecasting outlets summarize a summer season by using 90 degree days and give an inaccurate portrayal of New York City (no mention of any park).
  13. Here is a fall version of 90+ days. Listed are the number of 70+ days at certain locations for the month of October. It is likely that these will be the final figures. Lakehurst, NJ (WRI) 15 EWR 12 LGA 11 Hartford (BDL) 9 Providence 9 Boston 8 JFK 8 Bridgeport 7 NYC 6
  14. I am surprised that the misleading and distorted description "subtropical" is still in use for the Cfa climate category. Something like humid warm temperate would make more sense. Anyway, as you said, it served the Times' purpose and probably elicited a lot of "You must be kidding" responses from people for whom "subtropical" evokes images of Orlando, New Orleans or Houston. Actually those three locations are in the same Cfa climate zone as NYC. However, if one uses 32F as a northern boundary, Yonkers is not. I realize that the line has to be drawn somewhere and in my opinion the problem is that there are not enough "lines". Given the steep temperature gradient along the east coast during the colder months one can easily make the argument that there should be a different zone every few hundred miles, not one huge zone from central FL to NYC. There are other alternative classifications and climate maps that try to do this. The crepe myrtle and sweet magnolia may be happy here, and I wish them all the best, but IMHO putting NYC and Orlando into the same zone is just absurd. As an aside, when I was 7 or 8 years old my parents bought me Encyclopedia Brittanica. Like every normal kid, the first sections that I turned to were Weather and Climate. There, staring me in the face was a Koppen climate classification map that had NYC solidly in the colder Dfa climate zone. I remember getting a pencil, erasing the offending boundary line and redrawing it north of NYC.
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