TheClimateChanger

Also the concept of a 30-year climatological normal wasn't in widespread practice until the late 1940s. If we look at earlier years, the departures were simply calculated from the long-term means. In 1940, these were the 60-year means for Detroit [mostly from the city office] used to calculate departures from normal. If we look strictly at the progression of the annual normal mean at Detroit Metro Wayne Airport, we find the following: 1931-1960: 48.9F 1941-1970: 49.1F 1951-1980: 48.6F 1961-1990: 48.6F 1971-2000: 49.7F 1981-2010: 50.3F 1991-2020: 50.6F

Normals for Boston Logan Airport 1931-1960 on the left, 1961-1990 on the right And for Buffalo Niagara Airport: As you can see, at Boston, winters were only slightly cooler in the 1961-1990 normals versus the 1931-1960 normals. At Buffalo, the winters were actually warmer in the 1961-1990 normals versus the 1931-1960 normals.

Not as much as you might like to think. The normals were corrected for location and site exposure and not just averages of records from various locations. From what I could glean from the Local Climatological Data publications, the normals for each site were as follows: Detroit Metropolitan Wayne Airport 1931-1960 [1967 revision, after it became the official climate site in 1966] 1961-1990 So yeah, it was quite a bit colder during the winter, but there were seasonal variations. Spring was warmer in the 1961-1990 normals, and summer pretty similar. Fall was fairly similar but with some interesting ups [November] and downs [October].

97F at Morgantown, hottest since July 7, 2012.

And how many of these winters would be cooler than the 1961-90 normals?

Not even under a heat advisory.

Wow, 103F at Roanoke, Virginia, as of 4 pm.

Wow, that's pretty hot for 2500 feet. 93F (at least) at Elkins, WV (approx. 2000'). The AWOS at Garret County Airport (approx. 3000') was as high as 88F, but only reports every 15 minutes.

If you take the airmass over West Virginia, and descend it to sea level tomorrow, could see some 102-106F readings, I suspect.

Just south of the Pittsburgh CWA, Clarksburg, West Virginia (KCKB) has reached at least 98F. That is the hottest reading there since August 21, 1983. It reached 97F in 1988, 1995 & 2012.

Clarksburg, West Virginia up to 98F on the most recent hourly observation. That is the hottest reading there since 1983! It reached 97F in 1988, 1995 & 2012.

It could always be a LOT worse.

96, maybe 97 at AGC.

Same. I've had barely more than a tenth of an inch so far in July, and only about 2-1/2" since June 1.

0.45” of rain earlier this morning at PIT, 0.31” of which fell in 5 minutes. Nothing IMBY so far.

Heat hanging around tough today. Still 91 at 7 pm.

I guess we have to pretend a top 15-20 warmest start to the season is "so cool" because it doesn't actually get "cool" anymore. Meanwhile large portions of the east and west coasts are having their hottest summers on record, certainly top 5. Should be one of the hottest summers on record in recorded U.S. history. I mean the numbers above are with a mean trough over the upper Midwest. Just imagine the numbers 2024 could produce with a mega ridge over these same areas.

Except it hasn't been cool, it's been one of the hottest starts to summer in the lifetime of most of the posters here. The "refreshing" crowd is mostly trolling or revisionist history. This is in advance of a significant heat wave that looks to last through Tuesday... Cleveland - ninth warmest to date, less than a degree from second place. Since 1952, only 2005 & 2012 have been warmer. Chicago - 11th hottest start to summer on record. Since 1971, only 2012 & 2020 have been hotter. Literally one of the hottest summers in the lifetime of that troll @A-L-E-Kbut we're supposed to pretend it's nice and refreshing. Midway (KMDW) even hotter at 75.6F. Some other climate sites with long PORs. Many of these sites have multiple recent years higher, so prior to 2010, a lot of these rankings would have been several spots higher. Detroit: 20th warmest Akron/Canton: 13th warmest Mansfield, Ohio: 13th warmest Toledo: 19th warmest Lansing, Michigan: 24th warmest [records date to 1863] Saginaw, Michigan: 14th warmest Columbus, Ohio: 16th warmest [since 1949, only 1991, 1999, 2012 & 2020 hotter] Milwaukee: 14th warmest Rockford, IL: 13th warmest The Toronto crowd keeps saying it's not been too bad, but if we look at the data from the eastern Lakes region, we can see it's one of the hottest summers ever observed - certainly in recent memory. Buffalo, New York Erie, Pennsylvania Wheeling, West Virginia Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

In any event, today was the 10th day of 90+ for the summer. Looks like the next 4 days will do better than 90F, which would put us at 14 90+ on July 16. For the record, the 19th century summer data is absurd. Some of these years, the official summer mean temperature was warmer than D.C. Also, 1875-1900 averaged a ridiculous 29 days of 90+ in the official record. But 1901-1930 had an average of 9 days at the downtown site [which is even weirder when you consider most sites with PORs that long show that to be a warmer period, with hot summers in 1901, 1911, 1919, 1921, 1930]. The 1901-1930 average is actually one fewer than the current 1991-2020 mean.

Drought feedback? 12th driest start to summer on record, and 7th driest start to July. Meteorological Summer to date July to date

Today was both my warmest and coolest readings of the past 7 days.

Yes, I have the same thing in Pennsylvania. I don't know what it is. First time I have seen it. I thought it was some sort of insect nest.

*Correction: 1F below the observation from June 29, 2012, at 5 am, and 1F below the 8am observation today.

July 17, 1988 is also a candidate. It was 82F at 5 am and 8 am, 1F cooler than the observations from June 29, 2012 for those hours. I don’t have the hourly observations for 6, 7 or 9.