Record Temperatures At Airports!
By Paul Homewood
WUWT has the story of how Weather Underground, and adjustment denier Christopher Burt, have been getting excited about a new temperature record for May, set at the busy airport of Wichita.
Even if it was a genuine record, unaffected by airport bias, it would still mean very little.
With 50 states and 12 months a year, there would be 600 monthly state records up for grabs. Over, say, a 100-Year period you would get six such records every year on average, hardly anything to get excited about.
If alarmists really are so desperate to use such “records” for their propaganda, it shows just how weak their case is.
However, there is no evidence that any records really have been broken. The two nearest USHCN stations to Wichita are El Dorado and Anthony, just 34 and 48 miles away respectively. NWS have maximum temperatures of 100F for El Dorado and 101F for Anthony, on the 5th May, when the Wichita record was set. Neither of these are records for May. According to USHCN records, the highest May temperatures at El Dorado have been:
| Degree F | |
| 1913 | 101 |
| 1913 | 100 |
| 1925 | 100 |
| 1934 | 100 |
And Anthony:
| Degree F | |
| 1913 | 106 |
| 1913 | 105 |
| 1913 | 105 |
| 1953 | 105 |
| 1934 | 102 |
| 1967 | 102 |
| 1985 | 102 |
| 1996 | 102 |
| 1928 | 101 |
| 1939 | 101 |
| 1953 | 101 |
| 1962 | 101 |
| 2011 | 101 |
Christopher Burt claims to be a climate historian, but he evidently is not a very good one.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
I am not so sure about the logic over how many record could be expected in a year,
Is that based on the assumption of rising temperatures?
I am by no means certain of the mathematics involved but if temperatures were NOT rising, I would expect the number of records to diminish over time to almost zero after 100 years.
However, I look forward to being proved wrong.
The use of airport temperatures is suspect however.
I suppose it depends if you count ties or not.
If temperatures were not rising, I wouldn’t expect the frequency of ties (with the max. temp.) to increase.
But, on average, there would be the same likelihood of tying a record now, as in any previous year.
Assuming there’s no underlying bias towards warmer/colder months, then I think that’s right, QV. In theory I think the chances of seeing a new record in any given state, whether hot or cold, diminish over time (again, all other things being equal).
The NCDC monthly temperature data for US states start in 1895, so the probability that this May will become the new record warmest/coldest in any given state is 1/120. Last May the same probability was 1/119, and so on.
I don’t think the chances of a new monthly record can be multiplied by a factor of 50 for any given month just because there are 50 states. Each individual state is a separate entity with an equal 1/120 probability. You don’t increase your chances of winning the lottery by 50 times if you buy 50 tickets, unfortunately! You just get 50 chances at 14 million/1 each.
That’s not to say that a new record will never be set. Just that the likelihood of any latest monthly value setting a new record decreases as the number of possible outcomes rises.
“You don’t increase your chances of winning the lottery by 50 times if you buy 50 tickets, unfortunately! You just get 50 chances at 14 million/1 each.”
I would have thought that you would, it’s just that the chances are still v small. Doesn’t that reduce the odds from 14m/1 to 0.28m/1? However, I know that probability is a “tricky blighter” and as I have said I am no expert,
“now” presumably = “not”?
Tony.
Ta!!
Last night on the BBC weather it was reported that the minimum temperature in London would be circa 8C whereas the outlying area’s could possibly fall to zero. I bet that an adjustment of that magnitude has never, ever been factored in to the temperature record/statistics…..one or two degree’s maybe. The data that is used to provide support to the AGW theory is just not reliable….simple as that.
“With 50 states and 12 months a year, there would be 600 monthly state records up for grabs.”
But many more than that, Paul.
There’s absolute maximums; absolute minimums; summer minimums; winter maximums; diurnal maximums; to name but a few. And that’s relating only to temperatures. Add wind speeds, rainfall, snow depth, humidity, sunshine, hurricane count, tornado count. I suspect somewhere produces a new ‘record’ nearly every day.
wichita lies man