Occasional Thoughts on Climate Change

[LibertyBell]

On 9/9/2026 at 9:52 AM, TheClimateChanger said:

@donsutherland1 I was playing around with Astra to see how well it could do to create high-resolution maps of past temperature data. I'd say these weren't too bad. I tested it on this past July and the "hottest month ever" (registered trademark) of July 1936. This was using unadjusted data with bias correction.

Since I'm in Pennsylvania I've dug up some records. July 1936 isn't the one you should be looking at it's July 1911. The progenitor of the 11 year cycle super hot summers with some amazing heat records in the Poconos that have not been matched since and probably will never be. Climate change may increase the average temperatures but we do not get record high temperatures like that anymore. Climate change is strictly minimum driven in this part of the country.  Summer record highs are more common in the West and central part of the country. Not here. This is why I caution people not to assume that a +2 c increase in averages means the highs will increase by that much or that new heat records will be set, that's not how this works.

 

 

[bluewave]

23 hours ago, LibertyBell said:

Since I'm in Pennsylvania I've dug up some records. July 1936 isn't the one you should be looking at it's July 1911. The progenitor of the 11 year cycle super hot summers with some amazing heat records in the Poconos that have not been matched since and probably will never be. Climate change may increase the average temperatures but we do not get record high temperatures like that anymore. Climate change is strictly minimum driven in this part of the country.  Summer record highs are more common in the West and central part of the country. Not here. This is why I caution people not to assume that a +2 c increase in averages means the highs will increase by that much or that new heat records will be set, that's not how this works.

 

 

It’s tough to find the exact locations of where the Mt Pocono observations were taken before the airport opened. So it’s possible some of those warmer readings further back in time were taken at lower elevations where it’s warmer than the current airport location. That may be why some of the earlier warm records haven’t been matched at the current airport location. 
 

Station Thread for Mount Pocono Area, PA

	Name	Period in Thread
1	Pocono Mountains Municipal Airport	10/01/1999 to 12/31/2025
2	Tonyhanna Pocono Mountain Airport	12/01/1961 to 09/30/1999
3	Mt. Pocono	09/12/1901 to 11/30/1961

Before official automated airport observations began at the Pocono Mountains Regional Airport (KMPO) in 1999, weather observations in Mount Pocono were recorded by volunteer citizens through the National Weather Service Cooperative Observer Program (COOP). [1, 2, 3]

These historical records for Mount Pocono date back to 1901. Under this cooperative network, dedicated local residents, meteorologists, and property owners used equipment provided by the weather bureau to manually record daily maximum and minimum temperatures, snowfall, and rainfall from their own properties or local stations within the community. This long-standing cooperative network is what established Mount Pocono's foundational climate archive

 

 

 

[GaWx]

No, A. Parnas, the super Nino is not caused in part due to DT anti-climate policies!

[SnoSki14]

3 minutes ago, GaWx said:

No, A. Parnas, the super Nino is not caused in part due to DT anti-climate policies!

This is moronic on both levels. Thanking Trump for no hurricanes and saying it's due to anti-climate policies. 

[GaWx]

35 minutes ago, SnoSki14 said:

This is moronic on both levels. Thanking Trump for no hurricanes and saying it's due to anti-climate policies. 

Indeed. But Parnas is smart enough to know better. That’s a huge blunder for him. Typical DT supporters OTOH….though I’m suspecting trolling .

[LibertyBell]

2 hours ago, bluewave said:

It’s tough to find the exact locations of where the Mt Pocono observations were taken before the airport opened. So it’s possible some of those warmer readings further back in time were taken at lower elevations where it’s warmer than the current airport location. That may be why some of the earlier warm records haven’t been matched at the current airport location. 
 

Station Thread for Mount Pocono Area, PA

	Name	Period in Thread
1	Pocono Mountains Municipal Airport	10/01/1999 to 12/31/2025
2	Tonyhanna Pocono Mountain Airport	12/01/1961 to 09/30/1999
3	Mt. Pocono	09/12/1901 to 11/30/1961

Before official automated airport observations began at the Pocono Mountains Regional Airport (KMPO) in 1999, weather observations in Mount Pocono were recorded by volunteer citizens through the National Weather Service Cooperative Observer Program (COOP). [1, 2, 3]

These historical records for Mount Pocono date back to 1901. Under this cooperative network, dedicated local residents, meteorologists, and property owners used equipment provided by the weather bureau to manually record daily maximum and minimum temperatures, snowfall, and rainfall from their own properties or local stations within the community. This long-standing cooperative network is what established Mount Pocono's foundational climate archive

 

 

 

Those records from early July 1911 are absolutely wild. 98, 99 and 103 on three consecutive days and no other day from that location's entire history above 95! On the same day it hit 103 there it also hit 103 at Newark and the all time record high of 104 at Boston and it was 101 all the way into the Green and White mountains I think they're at a higher elevation than Mt Pocono? That was some heat dome Chris!

[bluewave]

49 minutes ago, LibertyBell said:

Those records from early July 1911 are absolutely wild. 98, 99 and 103 on three consecutive days and no other day from that location's entire history above 95! On the same day it hit 103 there it also hit 103 at Newark and the all time record high of 104 at Boston and it was 101 all the way into the Green and White mountains I think they're at a higher elevation than Mt Pocono? That was some heat dome Chris!

July 1911 was a weaker version of what we got this July 2026 closer to our area. Also note that the cooler weather in mid to late July 1911 didn’t occur this year. Those old time heat waves were often followed by much cooler conditions than we get these days. On September 14th, 1911 an observer near the MPO area recorded a low of 26°. So you can see how much colder the climate was back then.