Climate Trends In Nebraska
By Paul Homewood
By special request!
Willybamboo has asked me to have a look at climate trends in Nebraska, for a seminar being organised by the University there.
So, let’s start with temperature trends. For most of this analysis, I will be using data from the USHCN site at Minden, which is in the same southeastern part of the State as the University. Minden is recommended by USHCN as one of ten long running sites in Nebraska which have largely complete data.
Minden, with a population of about 3000, is also largely free of significant UHI effects.
First, annual trends. Note that this is based on temperatures adjusted by USHCN, not the raw ones.
Temperatures have clearly declined since the 1930’s; even the hot year of 2012 came nowhere near close to 1934.
We can also look at a whisker plot of monthly temperatures, and can note the spate of hot summers in the 1930’s, but also extremely cold winters in that decade as well. Also note some very cold months around 1980.
USHCN also give a whisker plot of daily data. If we look at daily max temps, we not only see the heatwaves of the 1930’s, but can also see that peak temperatures in recent years are actually much lower than during many other decades.
The record max temperature at Minden was 118F, set in July 1936. In contrast, the highest temperature during the heatwave of 2012 was only 104F
Finally, let’s look at daily record temperatures. The vast majority of records were set prior to 1960, both for summer and other seasons.
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/cgi-bin/broker?_PROGRAM=prog.select_d9k.sas&_SERVICE=default&id=255565
Rainfall
Now let’s look at rainfall.
Annual rainfall has certainly increased since the dustbowl years of the 1930’s. Since that period though trends seem to be pretty much flat.
Again, we can check out the whisker plot of monthly figures.
This is important, because it tells us a lot about extreme rainfall. The wettest month was June 1967, and there is nothing to suggest that extreme rainfall months are becoming more common or intense.
And extreme daily rainfall?
Summary
To the extent that there has been any climate change in Nebraska, it has been towards a less extreme one.
The extremes of both heat and cold are no longer as great as in the past, rainfall has recovered from 1930’s lows, and extreme rainfall is neither becoming more common or heavier.
Moreover, there is no indication of any trend at all in the last couple of decades in either temperature or precipitation.
In short, Nebraska’s climate is currently very stable.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Paul,
Extreme weather! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this effort. Wow! I can’t wait to see their data…. Wait, I might have to wait. I might have to wait a very long time.
Thanks again
William Abbott
I found the same thing using the weather records kept by the University of Nebraska itself and available from them for Lincoln, Nebraska. Published in 2012 in The Arts of Truth.
http://Www.lincolnweather.unl.edu
The data is all there: http://www.lincolnweather.unl.edu The graphs are not. Paul provides us with a graphical refutation that extreme weather events are increasing. It is very clear looking at the graphs. It’s not so instantaneously clear looking at the data tables.
The graphs are in the book. T, Tmax records, by year first day > 90F, days>90F, days>100F, precipitation, etc. You are welcome to use them, with source acknowledgement.
Or get my email coordinates and I will send you a set of the Lincoln charts stand alone. Glad to provide another set of ‘bullets’ for you to shoot.
ristvan, I can’t find the book, The Arts of Truth 2012 Can you help me?
Paul,
Can you please make the same analysis, where relevant, for the Raw Temperature Data and not the USHCN adjusted data – just to make it clear how the “adjustment game” changes the whole analysis. Thanks
Paul, I am guessing that all this data is available to all of us? We may not get as proficient as yourself, but, in fact, any of us could do this analysis for anywhere in the world for which data exist.
Thanks
Certainly in the US it is easy.
As one suspects all suggestion of big changes in the climate of Nebraska are just hot air – if you will pardon the expression.
It is worrying that the datasets of weather in the USA (and elsewhere) have now been heavily polluted by adjustments – always in the cooling the past and warming the present direction. It has been suggested that tampering with government data is a criminal offence in the USA ( I am a Brit of course and have no idea). Surely somebody must question (I know some have tried) the methodology and reasoning for these changes. At present the left in the States are happy to go along with anything that support their ideology, but even some Democrats are beginning to question the whole mess now.
Nebraska – an interesting State. My wife and I drove across most of it from South Dakota into Kansas one day about three years ago. It looks like low rolling hills of grass, but is actually grass covered sand dunes. It is the largest area of stabilised (or is that stabilized) sand dunes on Earth. The wagon-trains moving west across Nebraska, back in the day, looking for water, didn’t realise that just below their feet lies one of the biggest aquifers on the planet. The main problem for my wife and I was finding a diner and somewhere for a pee!!
This had led to purists in golf architecture to build world class golf courses in the middle of nowhere. The soil most closely matches the classic seaside courses where the game originates.
Sand Hills being listed in the Top 10 in the world.
Nebraska topography was affected by the large ancient inland sea which covered vast areas of the Great Plains. At the maximum of the last continental glacier, around 12-14,000 years ago, spruce forests extended as far as Kansas, and the Great Plains. South of that was deciduous forest. The trees retreated northward as the ice front retreated. So, for the past 8-10,000 years the Great Plains have been grassland. Much of the northern area is made up of sand dunes and windblown loess (silt deposits).
Already an area of low rainfall and heat, the 1930’s drought turned this area into the Dust Bowl as high winds swept up loose soil as dust. In 1936, a severe heat wave hit North America. This exacerbated the drought and Dust Bowl situation.
Not that it matters to your results, but Minden is not in SE NE, it is about a 2 hr drive west. I live in Lincoln a few miles from the University, I grew up 10 miles from Minden. NE transitions from a lower altitude / wetter East (where you can raise crops drylands) to a higher altitude / drier West (where you must irrigate). There can be a fair amount of variation in “wet” to “dry” in any given year between Lincoln and Minden, as there was this year.
Another fascinating article and discussions: I could become a pub quiz champion if only I could remember all the information!
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It seems to me that in every area where a detailed history of weather is examined the outcome is that weather trends, i.e. climate changes (which are integrated weather), are not occurring. If they are not occurring at the micro-level how can they be claimed at the world-scale where the range of weather is massive?
Reblogged this on Climate Collections.