TheClimateChanger

10th warmest mean temperature over the first 23 days. Prior to 2006, only 4 years were warmer (1955, 1977, 1878, and 1985), and the last one by only a tenth of a degree.

I know all about pollution. You're figure is exaggerated. You implied there is an 86x increase in cancer risk over a large area ["Cancer Alley" covers 85 miles of riverfront]. The highest risk you've actually shown is this one which finds a 50x risk - not even in one town, but in a sparsely populated area within a mile of the DuPont plant. And 86x is not close to 50x, it's nearly double. None of the EPA studies find anywhere near that high of an incidence. Air pollution from chemical plants is horrible enough, there's no reason to exaggerate. I don't understand why you're mad at me. All I did was a request a citation for the figure you quote.

Let's not pretend there was no air pollution before the Industrial Revolution. All the wood burning for heat, foundries, tanneries, etc. would have certainly lead to extensive smog in the cities. Not to mention, there was no garbage collection or sewage, so human waste was just strewn throughout the cities. Also, I'm going to need a source on this 86x cancer risk. That doesn't sound credible to me, and I can't find any source that claims anywhere near that figure.

Interesting. So on March 31, it's wet and cool. On April 16, still cool but drier. Meanwhile, it's been a very warm April. This forum is hilarious. 5th warmest [of 64 years] at IAD. 13th warmest [of 153 years] at DCA. While only beaten out by 12 years since records began in 1871, the DCA ranking is misleading as heck as well. Prior to 2006, there are only four warmer Aprils to date (1941, 1945, 1980, and 1981). And one of those four (1980) is a negligible 0.1F warmer. This would have been considered an exceptionally warm April in the 1990s or early 2000s when I started observing the weather. That's only 20-ish years ago. In one generation, what would have been considered a near record warm start to April is now considered "cool." How did we let this become normalized?

April Fools?

Partially true. But the main reason historically for the fruit growing belt is actually the opposite. The proximity to the Great Lakes keeps it colder in the early/mid spring depressing vegetation development until after the threat of frost and freeze was largely over. And then of course if there were late season frosts and freeze, providing enough moderation to minimize the threat.

If frost in April kills off the crop, it might be time to give up and move on to something else. Maybe it's just no longer a suitable climate for growing strawberries.

Brutal. Fell all the way from 2nd to 5th place on the MTD warmest list, with yesterday's cooldown. I fear we're going to fall pretty dramatically over the next few days. Look at all these recent years in the top 8 though! And people will still make up nonsense about how spring is always cool.

Have to tack on 3-5 degrees on sunny to partly sunny days in early spring to account for lack of vegetation IMO.

Looks like the nearby personal weather stations had a similar jump at that time. Possible heat burst from collapsing showers? This one Imperial went up above 65F and since cratered below 59F.

Interesting. I bet the negative anomaly in North America is due to the increase in wildfire smoke, especially last year, when we had a couple of HECS (historical east coast smoke storms).

METAR KYNG 172343Z 24014G24KT 7SM -TSRA FEW036 SCT048CB BKN090 17/14 A2979 RMK FUNNEL CLOUD B03 FUNNEL CLOUD E42 AO2 PK WND 24039/2318 WSHFT 2308 OCNL LTGCGICCCCA OHD-S TS OHD-S MOV NE P0012 T01670144

This time of the year, I feel like you've got to add a good 3-5 degrees to whatever they are forecasting to account for the lack of vegetation if there's any chance of appreciable sunshine. I'm sure once we get to summer, a lot of those 90-degree forecasts will stall at 88-89 though.

If we compare this to some cities in the Upper South, you can see the last two years, this period has been about on par for what would have been deemed normal for the lower elevations of northeast Tennessee and southwest Virginia, and well within the limits of normal variability in a place like Knoxville, Tennessee. This is surprising to me because this is heavily weighted toward winter, which tends to be the time of the year when the south is much warmer than western Pennsylvania. In the 30-year period from 1956-1985, only three years were warmer at Charleston, West Virginia [and only 5 were warmer than the same period in 2023 at PIT]. Similar story at Roanoke, Virginia. Only 10 of 30 years had a warmer YTD than Pittsburgh in the period from 1956-1985. And last year too would have placed solidly around the median value. In the Tri-Cities area of Tennessee, only 10 of 30 years had a warmer YTD than this year at Pittsburgh. And last year would have been around the median value.

Sorry for the off-topic post. But I was trying to figure out whether Pennsylvania is the best state, and I noticed that U.S. News and World Report has us at only 40th best [in other words, 11th worst]. Do you guys think this is a fair ranking? Why is it so low? Pennsylvania is the 5th most populous state, has plenty of natural beauty and a mild climate. Link: U.S. News and World Report Ranking for Pennsylvania

Not sure. Almost looks like a fog bank getting sucked up in updrafts. Is that possible?

This projection has worked out pretty good. Currently, PIT is at 55.1F for the MTD - up to ninth place. With today factored in, that should rise to around 55.8F, which would be good for 5th warmest for the MTD. Also, up to third place on the YTD rankings in the threaded record. A full 0.5F warmer than 2012, and 0.6F warmer than last year.

As a follow-up, this looks to be something specific to NYC (Central Park) ASOS. In addition to switching to an automated system at Central Park, they've also allowed a veritable jungle to encroach on the site in contravention of standard siting rules. So I would say it probably reflects a more substantial warm-season daytime cooling bias at NYC. 9 of the 20 longest streaks of 90+ at EWR are from the 21st century. And 10 of 20 at LGA.

Interesting. I don't see much evidence for this, but [assuming you are using data from first-order sites to draw this conclusion] it seems to coincide with the move to automated weather observing systems. Based on a study of 76 first-order sites from September 1, 1994 to August 31, 1995, ASOS averaged +0.79F COOLER* than the temperatures measured from conventional hygrothermometers - more specifically 0.90F COOLER for daytime maxima and 0.66F COOLER for overnight minima. Of the 76 sites studied, all but nine had a cooling bias with the installation of the ASOS. The study estimated +0.53F as a systemic bias, with an additional +0.37F bias due to improper solar shielding in the conventional hygrothermometer in the daytime, and an additional bias of +0.13F [but variable] for overnight temperatures resulting from the move of the station from sites close to airport buildings to more remote areas of the airport by the runways. What's interesting to me if you look at the temperature traces from first order sites today, it's warmed so much that this step change of nearly 1F is not even detectable. Can't help but wonder if the change in instrumentation isn't at play here if the data truly shows a decrease in heatwave length. It's certainly WAY hotter nowadays than it used to be in the summertime. Source: https://climate.colostate.edu/pdfs/climo_rpt_96_2.pdf Edit: Sorry, originally had warmer here. Just got the comparison mixed up, should read cooler.

Now up to third place all time for April precipitation since 1836. The record is 9.27" from 1852, which was observed at Allegheny Arsenal in present-day Lawrenceville by the U.S. Army Signal Corps. The highest total since the formation of the Weather Bureau [now National Weather Service] is 8.11" in 1901 from the downtown city office. With about two weeks left in the month, the current tally is 7.63 inches. Surprisingly, it's been quite a while (1987) since we had an April on this list (although 1998 & 2011 saw 5.00" and 5.13" respectively). Source: https://www.weather.gov/media/pbz/records/prec.pdf

82/44 officially for the high & low. I had 83.8/39.9 on the home station. Looks like the storms may miss us, which would certainly be welcome with all the recent rainfall.

Big upgrade for our area for today, as the enhanced risk has been expanded all the way into eastern Ohio. Includes a 5-10% risk of tornadoes within 25 miles of a point.