TheClimateChanger

I always cringe when they trot out these old state records that make no climatological sense. Today, we have to analyze every record with a fine tooth comb, but take everything in the past as absolute fact - even when it's completely out of line with all other stations. I always find it funny how these EXTREME temperatures always avoided the WBAN sites [weather bureau, army, navy] that would have been especially well maintained, despite the fact that many of the WBAN sites were in center cities and on biased rooftops. 111F on July 9 and 10th, 1936 at Phoenixville, but 103F on both dates at Harrisburg [WBAN] and 103F and 104F at Philadelphia [WBAN]. 103F & 105F at West Chester. Someone might object and say "oh, well it was 110F at Corry on July 14, 1936." That temperature is so ridiculous and off, I bet the observer [a local fire hall] just made it up for clout and to try to get a mention in the local media. Corry should be one of the coldest locations in the state... the town is situated at about 1400 feet, with 1700 feet plus hills just off to the east, in the far northwest corner just downwind of Lake Erie. The nearest stations had highs that day of: 92, Erie WB; 98, Titusville; 98, Warren; 95, at Jamestown, NY. The "112F" state record at Martinsburg on July 11, 1936. It was 98F at Hagerstown, Maryland, no more than 20 miles away, on the same date. Nonetheless, always trotted out to minimize climate change and fool the people. Don't get me wrong, the 1936 heat wave was insanely hot with widespread temperatures in the upper 90s and low to mid 100s. But a lot of these crazy high records from that era are certainly questionable.

The temperature can rise after 4 pm, you know? The high on both of those days was 1F higher than the reset, whereas the 4 pm observation the day of the reading was several degrees lower without any rain. 4 pm is near peak heating. It is not uncommon at all for the temperature to rise at some point after 4 pm particularly if there is varying cloud cover. Moreover, at 1F, it could have been the same reading just rounded in different directions. If it was in between 92 and 93, he may have called it 92 and then looked at it the next day and called it 93. These were being read off a mercury thermometer. Or it could have been just slightly higher than 92, warmed even a couple of tenths, exceeding 92.5F and then called 93 when read the following day. Either way, it is not at all uncommon for temperatures to vary by a few tenths or even a degree or so after 4 pm. Including only days when the temperature was exactly the same as the reported reset temperature is not a reasonable assumption in this case.

Honestly, if I'm doing climate forensics here, the data @chubbsposted looks like a solar heating problem, not a miscalibration. If the thermometer was simply reading too high, you'd expect it to be pretty consistent, but there was a stretch from about the 9th through 16th where it was largely in line with its neighbors. This was a very wet period. Although the cloud cover reported by the observer was mostly clear on the majority of those days, you can tell he was very lenient. Because several of the "clear" days had rainfall near or over 1 inch, with hours long thundershowers. Probably poor siting impacted by radiant heat from a nearby building or surface and/or poor maintenance of the shelter allowing filtered sun to reach the thermometer. Previous research by Anthony Watts has shown that even failing to maintain the whitewash paint can cause a not insignificant warm bias by allowing the shelter housing itself to radiate heat to the thermometer. Needless to say modern automated stations are definitely superior.

You can really see the impact of TOBs on the 8th. This looks at high temperatures on a few of the days with a big discrepancy. TOBs also impacts low temperatures because you lose midnight lows, which are surprisingly common in the summertime due to cool fronts and evening showers & thunderstorms. While @ChescoWxclaims there's no impact from TOBs, this is obvious BS. His analysis was at 8 pm [standard, daylight?], whereas some stations like Phoenixville were taking daily observations as early as 4 pm daylight time. As you can see, errors can be high as 20F (or more) on the daily maximum temperature. A single error of 20F would add about 0.6 to 0.7F to the mean maximum temperature. The high on the 7th was reported to be 102F, with a 4pm observation of 97F. The high on the 8th was 97F - obviously registered the previous day at 4 pm. But the 4 pm temperature on the 8th was 75F. This temperature was not a rain-cooled reading. Rain fell from 8 pm to 9:45 pm, and from 11:20 pm to 1 am., likely associated with a cold frontal passage the night prior. As such, the actual high on the 8th was likely in the mid to upper 70s, perhaps near 80. This would jive well with @chubbsgraphic, which shows that all of the neighboring stations were in the mid 70s that day. Looking at your graphic, the 22nd and 23rd depart significantly from the surrounding sites. We can see TOBs impacting that on both days. The high on the 21st was reportedly 101F, with a 4 pm observation of 100F. The high on the 22nd was reported as 101F, with a 4 pm observation of 92F. Skies were clear. Most likely, the mercury ticked back up a degree after the 4 pm observation on the 21st, and the high on the 22nd was in the mid 90s. We can see neighboring locations ranged from the mid 80s to low 90s. Same story on the 23rd. The high was 93F, but at 4 pm, it was just 85F with clear skies all day. Likely the 93F occurred the day prior shortly after the 4 pm observation, and the actual high was in the mid to upper 80s. Neighboring sites were all in the mid 80s that day.

It looks like they reset at 4 pm, so yes they would have been double counting many high temperatures. That’s near peak heating. I thought these were standard time, but it looks like it was 4 pm eastern daylight saving time.

Could it have been the result of an isolated tornado? No funnel cloud noted in the METAR, but visibility was poor.

Impressive.

This is probably the most insane stat in that post. A 14-year running mean of 52.8F to 53.0F would be 0.8 to 1.0F above the 1991-2020 mean. It would also be 2.5 to 2.7F above the 1961-1990 mean, which was 1.7F lower than the 1991-2020 mean.

I will say it's actually kind of crazy how quickly things are warming these days. 1991-2020 2001-2024 [nearly 80% of the way through the next climate average period] Note: The 52.3 mean includes the mean of 52.6 for the first 6 months of 2024. This will certainly rise since the second half of the year is invariably warmer than the first [every month is warmer than its analog, i.e. July -> June through December -> January], and likely finish between 53 and 55F. But given it's averaged over 24 years, would likely only push us up a tenth of a degree at most. Nevertheless, likely that once 2024 is fully included, the 24 year running mean will climb to 52.4F, or about 0.4F above the 1991-2020 average. And for the period that will be coming in 2040, obviously not even 50% of the way through so subject to major changes. But does anyone truly believe 2025-2040 will be cooler than 2011-2024 on the whole? Also see comment above, when 2024 is fully factored in, it's likely to be at least 52.8, and possibly as high as 53.0F. Here, the final tally is being averaged across only 14 years. The 14-year running mean is thus likely to be between 0.8F and 1.0F above the 1991-2020 mean. 2011-2024 My takeaway: At this point, each climate update is shooting up 0.5F or more over the prior period. Which, when you consider that each climate period includes 2/3 of the prior, means the decade is 1.5F warmer than the one it is replacing. It becomes doubly insane when you recollect to the 1990s and many of these people saying it was due to a "warm cycle." In other words, the periods being replaced were not unusually cold, but rather considered to be unusually warm at the time. I'm also old enough to remember being told it's warmed like a degree over 100 years, and not 1.5F degrees every 30 years.

Interesting. The funny thing about 2014 is it tied two daily record lows, and set one, despite not going below 50F. Only 7 days in the month of July have record lows above 50F, and it managed to find three of those low-hanging fruit days with timely cold fronts. If your suspicion is correct, daily record low minima in the month of July may permanently be a thing of the past. Not that record lows are common at any time of the year these days.

The historic heat wave continues across eastern North America, with a number of monthly high minimum readings in danger of falling today, including a couple of all-time records.

Looks like our streak of 80+ high temperatures will end tomorrow at 19 days, and then another streak begins Tuesday.

Weird. You would think with temperatures in the mid 80s, and dewpoints in the low to mid 70s, radar would be lighting up. I’m not complaining though. Glad we didn’t get that 1 to locally 4 inches of rain.

Doubt cloud cover will have much effect. It’s very hot and humid out.

Model projection showing elevated EHI for tomorrow.

SPC has Pittsburgh in a 5-9 percent risk of tornadoes (within 25 miles) for tomorrow. Given recent tornadoes with less than 2 percent risk, may be something to watch.

Update on yesterday's tornados:

Another thing I've noticed in reviewing old phenological records is that the same species of trees leafed out in northern Ohio later than they did this year in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. And temperatures from that era in Cleveland were in fact comparable to those observed in Marquette this year. Very interesting finding to me. You won't see any of this reported anywhere. Like you would think it would be important news, but I guess not. Oh, but do carry on about how NOAA's 2 degree warming estimate for U.S. is wildly overblown.

Some other oddities that don't jive with the official narrative. The mean winter temperature at Elkins, West Virginia [elev: 2000 feet, population almost nothing] over the past 9 winters is more than one half of a degree warmer than the mean temperature of all winters in Washington, D.C. [elev: near sea level, population: a very big city] from 1871 to 1921. This is a place that averages near 70 to 80 inches of snow per year historically, that is now warmer in the wintertime than the subtropical climate of the District of Columbia.

So what is the significance of this data? While NOAA continues to downplay the warming, we can see in fact that temperatures 100 years ago were routinely 8-10F cooler than the temperatures observed in 2024. The temperatures observed in this region in 2024 are more typical of 20th century East Tennessee (lower elevations). In fact, if we key in on Knoxville, Tennessee, for the period 1872-1996 (125 years), what we discover is this: 9 years [all on or before 1985] had a mean temperature at or below 52.1F. 34 years had a mean temperature of 53.4F or lower. 59 years had a mean temperature of 54.6F or lower. Turning instead to Tri-Cities, Tennessee [Bristol/Johnson City Area]... and I know the elevation here is a bit higher, but only by like 200-300 feet compared to the airports I showed in the Upper Ohio Valley. In fact, the elevation gain here is comparable to the elevation loss in comparing those locations to Knoxville and less than the elevation gain in the threaded records for those very locations. Anyways from 1938-2016, a period of 79 years, we find the following: 44 years had a mean temperature at or below 52.1F. 67 years had a mean temperature at or below 53.4F. All but 4 years had a mean temperature at or below 54.6F.

Very similar conditions can be noted in south central Pennsylvania, at locations like Hagerstown, Maryland [just across the state line] and Harrisburg/Middleton Area, Pennsylvania. Hagerstown, Md. Harrisburg/Middleton, Pa.