TheClimateChanger

And just to put this in perspective: NOAA has District 10 — southeast Lower Michigan — at the 23rd warmest January–April average low since 1895. DTW, meanwhile, is only 53rd warmest for the same period (1895-2026). Some of that is obviously tied to station history/site moves, but it illustrates the broader point: NOAA does not build climate averages from one airport thermometer. It uses the broader station network precisely because individual stations have siting, equipment, and continuity issues.

I think this misses the point. I’m not making a broad ASOS-era vs pre-ASOS-era argument. The issue is the ASOS sensor retrofit — Vaisala HMP155E probes replacing the older DTS-1 / HO-83/1088 sensors across the network. That rollout occurred last summer, so all of those Jan–May years are on the old sensor. The relevant comparison is before vs after the retrofit, not Jan–May rankings going back to the 1800s.

Withdrawal symptoms should subside shortly. Canada is reactivating the smoke machine as we speak.

This does not rebut anything. The claim is not “DTW should be colder than every nearby station.” The claim is that an equipment change can affect continuity in DTW’s own record. NOAA replaced ASOS temp/dew point sensors networkwide with the new Vaisala sensors/shields, and that rollout has been completed. So DTW, DET, YIP, and ARB are not some clean “control group.” They were all part of the retrofit. All you’ve shown is that DTW remains warmer than nearby stations. That’s siting/geography. It says very little about pre/post retrofit homogeneity.

The hypothetical only works by assuming the entire tropical ocean belt is +3.3°C above recent climatology, which is physically impossible. But yeah, in theory, if ONI were +3.3°C and RONI were 0°C, that would not mean “monster El Niño.” It would mean the entire tropical ocean was so absurdly warm that Niño 3.4 no longer stood out.

Oh yeah, I forgot: we’re only allowed to suggest modern readings may be biased warm. It is apparently anathema to point out that some sensor/site discrepancies could cut the other way — especially when the daily highs line up better than the lows.

A +2.7°C RONI peak may be comparable to 1982 in relative ENSO strength, but a +3.3°C ONI peak would still be physically meaningful because it reflects the actual SST anomaly humans, ecosystems, and the atmosphere experience. ONI already uses a rolling 30-year climatology updated every five years. So why is RONI still ~0.6°C lower? Because the entire tropical ocean background is running absurdly warm even versus the recent baseline.

The funniest part of this is that the goalposts move depending on which statistic is inconvenient.When I use mean temperatures, they complain that highs matter more because daytime warmth is what people actually experience. When I use maximum temperatures, they suddenly discover minima and diurnal ranges. There is a method to my madness here. Since the ASOS sensor/shield changes, minimum temperatures appear to be running unusually cool relative to the old observing regime, especially under radiational cooling setups. That means larger diurnal ranges can show up in the data in a way that is not necessarily apples-to-apples with the older record. That is why I have been emphasizing maximum temperatures more recently when it comes to ASOS readings. Highs are more likely to be consistent across the long-term record than minima that are especially sensitive to calm, clear-night radiational cooling and sensor/shield behavior. And, ironically, these unusually large diurnal ranges are the opposite of what you would expect if the signal were simply urban heat island or greenhouse-gas-enhanced nighttime warming. AGW tends to compress diurnal range by warming nights more than days. UHI also tends to show up most strongly in overnight minima. So yes, Detroit had a cold stretch. Nobody is denying that. But calling the winter some kind of grand rebuttal to the broader warmth is absurd. Year-to-date is still above average, March and April were very warm, and warmth has easily won the larger battle. You can cherry-pick January 15 to February 9 all you want. I can also pick March and April. That is why we look at the full context. But the rule cannot be: Mean temps matter when they help you. High temps matter when they help you. Min temps matter when they help you. And everything else is “spin” when it does not.

Exactly. A -2.6°F January departure against the warmest thirty-year normal on record is not some historic cold event. It does not even crack the top fifty coldest Januaries locally. In the old climate, that would have been a pretty ordinary, seasonably cold January. In today’s climate, people have become so used to warmth that a modestly below-normal month suddenly gets treated like 1977 reincarnated. That is the broader point they keep missing. Nobody is denying that cold shots happened, or that parts of the Great Lakes had a cool stretch. But it is pretty rich to accuse others of “ignoring the cold” while repeatedly ignoring the much larger and more persistent warm signal. From a historical perspective, it has been very warm year-to-date across much of the Midwest and Great Lakes, and even looking back over the last six months or so, since late November, warmth has easily won the battle. So yes, talk about the cold when it happens. That is weather. But pretending a ho-hum cold month or a two-to-three-day cool shot cancels out repeated warm pulses, record ridging, and months of above to well-above normal temperatures is not weather enthusiasm. It is selective accounting.

Wow! Nobody is “ignoring cold.” The point is that you’re cherry-picking cold pockets while acting like warmth somehow doesn’t count unless it happens in your backyard. Look at the actual regional year-to-date high temperature rankings: much of the western part of the subforum is top 5 warmest, with multiple stations ranking between 2nd & 5th warmest. Even farther east, places like Detroit, Cleveland, Columbus and Toledo are in the top 10 to 20 warmest for average daily highs, and those rankings are likely to climb with the ongoing warmth. So yes, there were cold stretches. It is still weather. But on balance, warmth has very clearly won out across the region. Only the far north has been more mixed. Calling that an “echo chamber” does not change the data.

Just some typical "no summer" doomerism from the usual suspects. In all seriousness, this looks like a warm start to meteorological summer.

This has been an incredibly warm spring. I guess some folks just won't be happy unless the temperature is in the 70s, 80s, and 90s every day.

The funniest thing about this whole nonsense is many of these "adjustments" (I don't think they are actually adjustments; data is smoothed across county lines) result in warming the past in many counties.

Incredible. Already as many or more 90+ days than 54 years - and it's only May 18. That's more than 1 in 3 years, and probably more like 1 in 2 or at least 2 in 5 if you back out recent decades where fewer than 2 90+ days has been exceptionally uncommon.

Same in Pennsylvania. Large parts of what are now the Allegheny National Forest were referred to as the Pennsylvania Desert - completely clear-cut by loggers. Really makes one wonder how much this incredible expansion of forestland has cooled the regional climate.

What are you talking about? Nobody is "having a discussion with AI"... I use it for assistance in creating an engaging headline, that's all. As Don pointed out, there is, in fact, evidence that it is better at that than a human. And I can say from my personal analytics, that this is certainly the case.

Don't get me wrong, though - I get where you are coming from. But I'm just doing this as a hobby and competing against a steady stream of dis- and misinformation. There are accounts that are actually PAID big bucks just to spread climate disinformation. For an unpaid hobbyist to compete against a career liars, AI is an absolute must.

Sorry, I don't have time to write my own posts. And ChatGPT headlines get far more engagement than any I could create.