Sydney’s Highest Temps Each Year
May 20, 2021
By Paul Homewood
h/t Graeme No3
Further to Joe Root’s surprise that it gets hot in Australia in the summer, we can plot the highest temperature each year at Sydney, using the website below:
These records were observed at Sydney’s Observatory Hill Park and go back to 1859. I have downloaded the data and charted it:
The record stands at 43C in 2018. However there are 13 years which reached 42C, including 1863 and 1896.
Given that urbanisation has certainly upped temperatures, there is certainly no justification for Joe Root’s hysteria.
22 Comments
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
Seems more like the BBC have found Joe Root to be a convenient conduit for continuing its own program of mis-information and mild hysteria.
Most people other than cricketers at work don’t choose to run around in the direct sun for days on end in 40C temps. Hardly surprising if some of them find it tough going, but blaming human emissions isn’t going to get them anywhere.
Mild? Ah, I see what you mean. COP26 is coming, and panicking about Sydney temperatures is mild compared with the dungheap of dreck that this insane government is going to subject us to on the way to November.
JF
Much of what is broadcast by the BBC is bias. That is its primary purpose. Entertainment is used as the bait to draw people in.
I await Wayne Rooney’s thoughts on existentialism and Tyson Fury on metaphysics.
Best joke that I have seen on Not a Lot……… I have seen for a long time.
Once the data have been homogenised Joe will prove to be right!
O.T, In an age of climate propaganda, here’s an actual scientific discovery. Very interesting news, this. Definitely worth reading.
https://notrickszone.com/2021/05/19/amazing-results-la-ninas-begin-when-22-year-solar-cycle-ends-now-6th-consecutive-time-since-1960/?fbclid=IwAR0VfroeaqZNWx64EGZ5FgslT3DbG8XLhFMBZVLMIG98qmkm4mT2AmibVS0
Sydney’s Observatory Hill Park is a small green oasis surrounded on 3 sides by huge tower blocks. No question of the UHI effect there…much!
The DT may be waking up to the realities of net zero, but not Ambrose Evans Pritchard,
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2021/05/20/ieas-damascene-conversion-net-zero-makes-us-richer-cuts-energy/
The whole article is most encouraging, provided you remember that every prediction that AEP has ever made about anything has turned out be wrong. Interesting writer, but always wrong.
Would be interesting to see the chart of high Sydney temps correlated with dates of Test Matches there…
Here is a recent article about the history of Sydney Observatory, it says that the original thermometer enclosure was a Glaisher stand, almost certainly at a different location to the current one:
https://www.maas.museum/inside-the-collection/2020/02/26/meteorology-at-sydney-observatory/
I think that they had a Stevenson screen in 1858, along with Melbourne. The latter moved its Stevenson screen in 1867 to a park. Adelaide followed closely.
Both cities records were added to the HADCRUT data in 1858, so possibly confirmation.
Before that there was only ONE thermometer in the Southern Hemisphere and that in the tropics in what is now Indonesia.
They have just had a spell of ‘cold’ nights, most in succession since the late 50s
” Longest stretch of cold May nights for Sydney in 54 years”
Its only got to 9C or less , but is ‘chilly’ by Sydney standards
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/winter-is-edging-ever-closer-longest-stretch-of-cold-may-nights-for-sydney-in-54-years-20210520-p57tim.html
Imagine the alarmism if it was the warmest May nights in 50 years!. Its just weather of course, but like Cricket it seems every minor occurrence is over analysed for its historical importance
I live in Newcastle a couple hours north of Sydney. This has been the coolest summer in my memory. Normally I expect three or four 40 C days, and five or six wouldn’t be unusual. This summer there were none.
As for Sydney the population has grown massively. UHIE in the west in the suburbs bounded by the mountain range are regularly up to 10 C hotter than Observatory Hill – and as Dave Wild points out is surrounded by the city and the highway coming off the Harbour Bridge.
Our BoM is just as nutty as your Met Office. Their temperature forecasts are regularly high by a degree or two. They run the base model that Hadley Centre developed.
In general I think Mr Root should stick to cricket and work on his batting more.
Almost every year 35 or above. 30 years with it above 40. Impossible to see there’s any kind of trend there at all.
I’m not sure where those temps came from but can’t be the raw data from the BoM. The highest temp for Sydney was 45.8C on 18th Jan 2013 which beat the then record of 45.3C set on Jan 14, 1939.
Record temp
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/tables/cw_066062_All.shtml
1939 temp
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_display_type=dailyDataFile&p_nccObsCode=122&p_stn_num=066062&p_c=-872867262&p_startYear=1939
Maybe the figures quoted in your article are the ‘adjusted temps’ from ACORN2 – a total fabrication from the raw data.
One thing that’s fact about Sydney’s temps – there were around the same number of +35C days between 1921-1950 as from 1991-2020. So no real change there, Joe.
It depends where the temperature was read. If I remember correctly that highest temp. was at the same time as a much lower figure about 300 metres away (on Fort Denison in the harbour). Any records from ACORN2 are unlikely to be raw data, but ‘adjusted’.
Adelaide had a “record” temperature recently (2019) after much hype that it was coming. Curiously I was looking at the tables and noticed that it happened between one table and the next 10 minutes later. Also other stations didn’t report the sudden jump (and rapid fall).
By the way, a recent crowd audit of BOM sites on Ken’s Kingdom found 48% of those sites DID NOT meet BOM’s standards. search https://kenskingdom.wordpress.com if interested.
Graeme
These temps were from Sydney Obs (see below). The graph on the day of the so-called record of 45.8C did not show it above 44.9C. The temp data 10 min recording showed 44.9C at the ten minute mark, spiked to 45.8C 4 mins later and then dropped to 44.8C at the next ten min mark. The AWS have a one-second response rate – the liquid in thermometers were much slower to respond and thus would not have picked up any quick temperature spike.
I follow Kenskingdom – he has done some excellent analysis.
Curiously BOM only show data for Obs Hill since 2017 now!
But the figures I used do seem to check out with KNMI
Anyone want to bet as to why the essentially same records are about 70 years apart.
Paul
Here is the data for Sydney Obs prior to the move of the site in 2017.
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/ncc/cdio/weatherData/av?p_nccObsCode=36&p_display_type=dataFile&p_startYear=&p_c=&p_stn_num=066062
This site takes you to all Sydney and surrounds.
http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/data/
Click off tick next to ‘Only show open stations’ to show closed station data,