TimB

That’s true, wasn’t thinking about the lakes in Madison having such a big effect but Mendota is a rather large lake. I suppose the question with La Crosse would be, where were official observations taken prior to the airport? That would shed a lot of light on whether this past week is an alarming, unprecedented anomaly or just a hot week.

That’s quite interesting. None of those are particularly large airports, with the exception of MSP. As UHI effects go, I don’t know much about La Crosse or Duluth, but I know UW-Madison is basically downtown while the airport is way out on the east side, so it’s interesting that the airport would run so much warmer, especially being the small regional airport that it is. With that being said, it does appear that records at La Crosse airport date back to 1938, so I would say it’s valid to compare any data from then to now. But I’m wondering if it’s maybe more of a geographical thing than a UHI thing, at least in that case.

I mean I suppose when the old blood doesn’t circulate as well as it once did, maybe 90 feels like 70. I spent enough time in my grandparents’ houses when they were alive for that to seem like an educated guess.

How do millions of people live like that? I’ll never understand.

Currently 94/65 at MCO.

Warmest on record at MSP by 2.4 degrees 2nd warmest at Milwaukee and Green Bay, WI (1925) 5th warmest at Madison, WI (warmest since 1963) Warmest at La Crosse, WI by nearly 2 degrees Warmest at Duluth, MN by 2.7 degrees All of these periods of record date back to the 1800s. The last two entries on this list I would imagine are significantly less prone to UHI than the others, and they completely rewrote the record books by a huge margin. It’s not all UHI, and I would argue it’s not even primarily UHI.

I can live with this GFS run.

Just looked at the data up there. We’ll see how the rest of June plays out but there’s at least solid potential for a truly alarming record to be set at MSP re: mean temperature for the month of June.

Looks like a nice solid garden variety thunderstorm coming through. Hoping it doesn’t miss me. Edit: it got me Also officially hit 88 today, warmest day of the year so far.

Anything more than a week out is just for entertainment and discussion purposes, but I’d be shocked if I got 4” of rain between now and the end of this work week.

Can’t post it either, plus the 6-10 and 8-14 day precip maps from NWS CPC look ominous.

How ‘bout that CMC rain map?

Well yeah, Syracuse gets 3x the snow we do and Burlington gets double our snow. Much easier to get colder when your climo allows you to get and maintain snow cover, which we all know happens very rarely in Pittsburgh except for this past February.

Feels like 112 would be warning numbers.

What, are you saying people who spend a lot of time on weather forums aren’t getting it anytime they want it and then some?

Burlington hit 95 and Syracuse 93.

I didn’t know that either about the dewpoint at that location. I can’t imagine I’ve ever looked at any observation from Moorhead, MN before Friday. I know some types of weather observing stations struggle mightily in lower humidity environments and understate humidity and dewpoints. Could this be it?

All 3 of your favorite places that get hotter than Pittsburgh on a regular basis sit at 400 feet or lower, while KPIT is at like 1200 feet. All 3 are at least 5 degrees ahead of us at this juncture and probably have less cloud cover at the moment than we do. I’d be surprised if today tops out even a degree higher than yesterday. Edit: KSYR is reporting mostly cloudy. So maybe not correct on the cloud cover. Late afternoon update: Syracuse has reached 91, Burlington 94. Temps stalled at Portland so they didn’t get to 90 but are still ahead of us.

Moorhead, MN - directly adjacent to Fargo. KFAR was 86 at that hour with a dewpoint of 58. The temperature of 88 may have been valid, but I’m strongly questioning the dewpoint of 48. I noticed their dewpoints on Thursday afternoon were at 19 when KFAR’s were at 50, and it looks like yesterday afternoon their dewpoints were at 34 when KFAR’s were close to 60. I know heat bursts can do this, but this ain’t it.

Syracuse did hit 93 today.

PIT 86 today, Syracuse 93, Burlington 88, Portland 86.

W/NW flow? I’m honestly not sure.

This is the thing. International Falls and Bismarck reaching temperatures weeks earlier than they ever have before is clearly much less affected by UHI and more by AGW, but it affects much fewer people so no one notices. There’s really no good answer here. I’m afraid so, but even then, there will be plenty of “what about 1988” and “what about 1936”. Can’t win.

Looks like MSP’s low this morning was 78. If they don’t get below that by midnight (could be close), that would be the earliest they’ve ever recorded a low of 78 or above (6/7/11, which itself broke the previous record by over two weeks). It’s certainly not good, but the silver lining is it’s possibly better for public awareness if major population centers are setting these absurd records as opposed to places like International Falls or Bismarck that could be considered BFE to many people.

A nice cool weekend would be ideal for that. Beyond next weekend, the GFS seems to go back and forth. One run it’s hot every day, the next run it’s cool every day. And of course there’s quite a range in QPF between the models. Comparing the 0z runs, Euro gives me 5.1” over the next 10 days, GFS 1.5” and CMC 1.0”.